Table of contents for August 2023 in SFX

ALL HIGH, NO LOW Martin Brown, email Having just finished season one of Silo I felt compelled to write in to say that not only is it the best thing on TV right now, it could be the best TV series I’ve ever seen. Bringing Hugh Howie’s brilliant Wool books to such stunning life, and led by an astonishing, Emmy-worthy performance from Rebecca Ferguson, book adaptations – and TV in general – just don’t get any better than this. SFX: It’s a fave at SFX Towers too, Martin. How great that it’s got a second season, eh? MIXTAPE-WORTHY Roland Robinson, email Re: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol 3. What a terrific treat this film was. After quite a few less than brilliant Marvel films, this is ab fab! And it…

BILLED AS A FRESH coming-of-age tale, new animated series My Adventures With Superman hopes to leap competing superhero shows in a single bound with the internship trio of nerdy Clark Kent (Jack Quaid), an ambitious Lois Lane (Alice Lee) and the cameratoting Jimmy Olsen (Ishmel Sahid) teaming up to forge an investigative reporting squad at the Daily Planet. “The core thing that’s different all ripples out from Clark,” says showrunner Jake Wyatt regarding how this series compares to previous Superman fare. “There’s the famous Kill Bill monologue about how Clark Kent is the mask and Superman’s the real guy. We started with the inversion of that. He’s Clark. He was raised by Ma and Pa. It’s the name he’s answered to his whole life.” This version of Clark also has…

Crowley and Aziraphale come off as the best of frenemies at times. Where do they stand with one other now? DT: They are indeed. What’s different in season two is because of what happened at the end of season one, they no longer have head offices that they have to report to. They are in a very different position. Whereas before they were trying to get away with things, now they are kind of free agents. MS: Although sort of fugitives as well. They are sort of in-between. But this amazing life they have created over a millennia, they are now able to enjoy in a slightly different way. They are not having to put on a front for their respective teams. There is a different kind of freedom. DT:…

DIRECTOR JUSTIN Simien has a history steeped in Disney, he tells SFX. The films he grew up with – Beauty And The Beast, Oliver And Company and The Little Mermaid – were, he says, “a big deal in me figuring out I even wanted to be a filmmaker”. Visiting Disney World “all the time” as a kid – before later working at the theme park (a ride operator at Grizzly River Run in Disneyland, fact fans) while studying at film school – it was Haunted Mansion that was his favourite attraction. Specifically, he was intrigued by the trickery of it all: “When the hitchhiking ghosts are on your arm at the end of the ride, that used to really fuck me up as a kid.” Fortunately, it didn’t put him…

WHEN IT COMES TO transferring fan-favourite animated characters to live action, the Walt Disney Company effectively wrote the rulebook. Over the last decade the studio has developed an extremely lucrative sideline making the likes of Beauty And The Beast, Aladdin and most recently The Little Mermaid part of our world, so it’s hardly an earth-shattering revelation that the interstellar division of the Mouse empire is following suit. Ahsoka, the latest Star Wars TV show to land on Disney+, is a spin-off from The Mandalorian, but it’s also built around characters who made their names one digitally rendered frame at a time. Title character Ahsoka Tano was Anakin Skywalker’s Jedi apprentice during the CG adventures of The Clone Wars, while the supporting cast is packed with heroes she met while they…

The Futurama season seven finale “Meanwhile” was very well-regarded. Did that 2013 episode feel like a true ending to you? I think when you’re in the middle of anything, no matter what’s going on, you feel like that’s the last time you’re ever gonna work. I thought our show had beautiful endings. But then the writers always have a surprise up their sleeve when it comes time for revival. I feel the same way this time. How did you get told it was renewed again? I got a phone call from Matt Groening. He started off by going, “Good news, everyone!” I said, “No, really? I can still do the voices!” After a 10-year hiatus, how was it slipping back into the world again? I don’t feel like anything is…

CONGRATULATIONS ARE IN ORDER. When SFX sits down to chat with bona fide legend Jamie Lee Curtis it’s only been days since she won her – long-overdue – Academy Award. Everything Everywhere All At Once scooped a whopping seven wins, including Best Picture. Even better, Curtis picked up her Oscar for a role in a sci-fi film. “A sci-fi drama really,” she considers, “but a sci-fi film with a dildo fight, a butt plug martial arts fight and deep emotion. I’m thrilled that something as diverse as the movie was recognised in such a beautiful way.” When she puts it like that, it must’ve been interesting when she first read the script… “I didn’t really understand it,” she admits. “But I also understood that it wasn’t my job to understand…

▸ RELEASED 21 JULY PG | 98 minutes ▸ Director Matt Drummond ▸ Cast Alyla Browne, Alice Parkinson, Sam Everingham, Beth Champion → There’s a quaintly nostalgic charm to this Australian film about two young siblings who find another world beneath the floorboards of their new home. With shades of fantasy favourites like The NeverEnding Story and The Chronicles Of Narnia, the children are thrown into a magical land and tasked with saving it from the clutches of an ancient evil. It’s sweet, but all a little silly, with an early scene featuring an army of, er, talking pangolins in battle armour. Often times it feels like fantasy film bingo, quickly ticking off boxes for lofty prophecies, CG dragons and lonely children who find out that they’re destined to become…

▸ UK/US Netflix, streaming now ▸ Showrunner Lauren Schmidt Hissrich ▸ Cast Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, Freya Allan, Joey Batey EPISODES 3.01-3.05 Geralt of Rivia (Henry Cavill) continues his mission to protect fugitive princess Ciri (Freya Allan) from the darkest forces on the Continent, even though – in the tradition of teenagers everywhere – she doesn’t seem to think she needs any help at all. Luckily, Geralt is now receiving parental assistance from on-off love interest Yennefer (Anya Chalotra), and the fun new family dynamic is one of the best things about this third season. Unfortunately, the overall story arc is less accomplished. Despite a few callbacks to prequel series Blood Origin, the overall mythology appears to be built on flimsier foundations than, say, Game Of Thrones. And while there’s plenty…

▸ RELEASED 17 JULY 2023 | 18 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/download ▸ Director Lee Cronin ▸ Cast Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols → Fede Álvarez’s 2013 “re-imagining” of Evil Dead was a satisfactory, if po-faced, attempt to resurrect the franchise. It performed fairly at the box office, but didn’t have much of a lasting impact. Ten years later, Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise feels like more of a fan-pleaser. With its relentless gore and moments of queasy humour, it’s a solid evocation of Sam Raimi’s trilogy. Beth (Lily Sullivan) is visiting her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) in the crumbling LA apartment block she shares with her three children. The sisters have a strained relationship that deteriorates further when Ellie is possessed by a demon and goes on a…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1993 | 18 | Blu-ray ▸ Director Herman Yau ▸ Cast Anthony Wong, Danny Lee, Emily Kwan, Lau Siu-ming BLU-RAY DEBUT The first third of this Category III (over 18) Hong Kong horror – a sensationalised retelling of Macau’s Eight Immortals restaurant murders that adds a fanciful element of cannibalism – is more goofy than grim, as a squad of incompetent police officers bumble around investigating the discovery of some human body parts washed up on a beach. The comedy is crass and sexist, but it’s eye-rolling and embarrassing rather than actually nasty. That soon changes. A (fictionalised) scene where restaurateur and serial killer Wong Chi-hang (Anthony Wong) rapes and murders one of his employees is genuinely grotesque, while a flashback to Chi-hang’s previous – and real…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | PG | SVOD ▸ Directors Nick Bruno, Troy Quane ▸ Cast Riz Ahmed, Chloë Grace Moretz, Eugene Lee Yang, Frances Conroy NETFLIX Shapeshifting punk Nimona, created by She-Ra showrunner ND Stevenson, should have hit the big screen in 2020. A casualty of Blue Sky Studios’ brutal closure, the film was mercifully revived by Annapurna Pictures and has now landed on Netflix, still defiant. And rightly so. It’s not often an animated movie proudly showcases a gay lead: Riz Ahmed’s soulful Ballister Boldheart, who’s in a relationship with the cheekily named Ambrosius Goldenloin (Eugene Lee Yang). In a city under threat from a monster, they’re knights trained to defend its walls. After being framed for murder, however, Ballister goes on the run to clear his name,…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1970 | 18 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT Jess Franco’s 17th century shocker rides the coat-tails of Witchfinder General by portraying infamous “Hanging Judge” George Jeffreys. Christopher Lee perma-scowls in a variety of wigs; anonymous hands fill in to grope a nubile’s breasts. Expect vocabulary like “coxcomb” and “lumpkin”, and much leering sadism as pretty young witches are whipped and stretched on the rack. Bruno Nicolai’s pretty theme adds a touch of class. + Extras Two commentaries; producer featurette; deleted scenes; more.…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1981 | 18 | Blu-ray (4K/standard) ▸ Director Andrea Bianchi ▸ Cast Karin Well, Gianluigi Chirizzi, Simone Mattioli, Antonella Antinori → An Italian zombie film not overly concerned with niceties like exposition, Burial Ground gets straight down to it: horny couples fumbling within nine minutes, zombies attacking within another eight. It has five things going for it. Firstly, the zombies’ surprising aptitudes. This lot can climb, wield a scythe, make a battering ram and even operate a circular saw! The undead masks, though crude, are all individualised – gotta love the guy with worms permanently dangling from one eye socket. It’s set in a 17th century villa, whose frescos and velvet drapes (not often does a zombie film have a credit for curtains) make for a…

▸ RELEASED 18 JULY 336 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Silvia Moreno-Garcia ▸ Publisher Jo Fletcher Books → There’s just something compelling about the idea of stumbling across a long-lost film. Admit it: if you came across a copy of London After Midnight, there’s no way you’d be able to resist hitting play. But sometimes, maybe films get lost for a reason… In ’90s Mexico City, cult horror-loving sound editor Montserrat runs into the director of a legendarily cursed lost film and, inevitably, finds herself helping him with his scheme to recover the stolen film reels and finally finish the movie. Unfortunately, embedded in the highly combustible film stock is an occult ritual, and by re-editing in a new audio track, Montserrat unwittingly unleashes something horrible. Appropriately for a novel…

▸ RELEASED 13 JULY 400 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah ▸ Publisher Harvill Secker → Suzanne Collins claimed she was inspired to write The Hunger Games after channel-surfing between reality TV and news about the Iraq War. You wouldn’t be surprised if Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah was up late flipping between a documentary on the Innocence Project and professional wrestling when he got the idea for Chain-Gang All-Stars. In this near-future dystopian version of the US, prison inmates compete in televised death matches. Competitors get new names (“Hurricane Staxxx”), personalised weapons and theme music; fans cheer for their favourites and lap up the violence. The most famous All-Star is Loretta Thurwar, a hammer-wielding terror who’s only a few matches away from freedom… until the powers-that-be change the rules.…

▸ RELEASED 18 JULY 382 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Dean Koontz ▸ Publisher Thomas & Mercer → What would you do if you died, but were resurrected – through a combination of nanobots and luck – with the ability to connect to all the digital data flying around the world? Probably not what protagonist Michael Mace does for most of After Death, which is pretty much sod all. What initially promises to be a black twist on the superhero genre turns into a watered-down Tarantino-esque crime romp with quipping gangsters, a psycho-killer rogue agent and conspiracy theories, all wrapped up in a chase/road movie narrative. There are some bravura passages here when Dean Koontz effectively ramps up the tension or surprises you by inverting clichés or inventing amusing bizarre…

▸ RELEASED 20 JULY 509 pages | Hardback ▸ Author Ariel Kaplan ▸ Publisher Solaris → Creating a fantasy world that draws on the mythology of our own is nothing new – but Jewish mythology is underexplored, and this novel entwines it with one of the darker periods of Jewish history. Set during the days of the Inquisition, when Jews across Iberia were told to convert or leave – without their possessions – The Pomegranate Gate tells the stories of Naftaly Cresques and Toba Peres, who are attempting to flee when they stumble across two strange-eyed men in woodland. Toba follows them through a gate to another world, where she learns more about the magical Mazik people and her own family’s history with them – and about the “mirror effect”…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▸ Publisher Marvel Comics ▸ Writer David F Walker ▸ Artist David Wachter ISSUES 1-3 The side-effects of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox continue to reverberate through the world of comics, and the latest Fox property to fall into Marvel’s hands is Pierre Boulle’s classic sci-fi allegory Planet Of The Apes. This isn’t Marvel’s first try at the franchise – they produced a run of tie-in comics back in the ’70s – but this five-issue miniseries is a different proposition, exploring the world of the 2011–17 reboot trilogy, and acting as a potential launchpad for a long-term Apes comics saga. The story is set in the wake of 2011’s Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, as the “Simian Flu” is in the process of wiping out…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▸ Reviewed on PlayStation 5 ▸ Also available on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S ▸ Publisher Blizzard Entertainment VIDEOGAME Wave goodbye to your spare time, because Diablo is back. Don’t think you get to escape if you’re unfamiliar with the series, as it’s perfectly welcoming to newbies. All you really need to know is that the slightly miserable fantasy land of Sanctuary is in danger yet again. The demonic Lillith created Sanctuary, but now threatens it. Enter… you! What form “you” takes is very much up to you. Begin by selecting a class (Barbarian, Necromancer, Sorcerer, Rogue, Druid), and unlock and upgrade abilities to your liking as you level up. As obsessed with loot as the series ever has been, nabbing armour and weapons from…

TALK ABOUT preparation. Before Danny and Michael Philippou set out to make their feature debut Talk To Me, they took a trip to Rhode Island to the family home made famous in The Conjuring. “We also got haunted dolls from all over the world and brought them to the house and did a sleepover,” grins Michael. “If you bring haunted dolls to the world’s most haunted house surely something haunted happens!” Adds twin brother Danny: “We chase it so much. Every country that we go to, we always try to stay in the most haunted location!” All this paranormal activity clearly fed into Talk To Me, a supernatural tale in which Aussie teens learn how to commune with the dead. To reach the other side, all anyone need do is…

“MY OLDER BROTHER GOT ME HOOKED on sword and sorcery in a big way when I was a kid – reading fantasy novels and playing Dungeons & Dragons,” recalls Jim “Zub” Zubkavich, a childhood fan of Robert E Howard’s Cimmerian. After scripting the Barbarian’s exploits for both Dark Horse and Marvel, he’s now taking charge of Titan Comics and Heroic Signatures’ new Conan series, teaming up with artist Roberto De La Torre. “Conan has always loomed large for me,” he tells Red Alert. “The classic Frank Frazetta covers on those Conan paperbacks promised visceral adventures, and I couldn’t get enough of them. The fact that Conan was splashed all over comics too, with the classic Marvel monthly series and the darker and more violent Savage Sword Of Conan magazine made…

Danny DeVito’s face lights up, remembering something. “I have something you’re gonna really like, just stay right where you are. Don’t move,” he says before getting up, stepping to his right and off camera from our Zoom conversation. “Don’t move!” his voice floats from somewhere nearby. “Stay where you are. Now – concentrate on the screen. Ready?” A black and white-patterned spinning umbrella appears in shot, filling the screen. “Do you know what that is?” the disconnected voice asks from behind. What else could it be? “That is the original Penguin’s umbrella,” DeVito says proudly, emerging from behind it. “Ladies and gentlemen, watch his mind be blown…” It is, we delight in saying, incredible that not only does he own it, but it’s right to hand. DeVito immediately adopts his…

Grand Admiral Thrawn first appeared in 1991 novel Heir To The Empire, the first in a trilogy by author Timothy Zahn. Although no longer considered canon, the books – set in the aftermath of Return Of The Jedi – helped keep Star Wars’ fire alive during the dark times between the original and prequel movie trilogies. Thrawn made his canonical debut in Star Wars Rebels. Zahn has also written three new novels set in the new continuity. Thrawn is a Chiss hailing from Rentor, a world within the Chiss Ascendancy. His full name is Mitth’raw’nuruodo. One of the few non-humans to rise to the upper echelons of the Galactic Empire, he became renowned as a master tactician. He was subsequently assigned to eliminate the Rebel threat on Lothal, and proved…

“THAT’S ME!” REBECCA ROMIJN says excitedly when she sees herself on the cover of SFX magazine. “I’m in Star Trek,” she beams and greets us with a Vulcan salute. “I got in trouble because I was doing it this way,” she whispers, pulling her thumb to her hand. “Ethan said, ‘That’s not how you do it!’ He told me you have to separate the thumb, which I wasn’t aware of. He shamed me. He LLAP-shamed me. And then it started making me nervous every time I did it. I was like, ‘Am I doing it right?’” Romijn is in London to celebrate the launch of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season two and is in high spirits. Make no mistake, she loves being part of Star Trek. Which is great,…

THE ’70S WAS THE DECADE OF THE musical variety show in the US, with everyone from Johnny Cash to the Brady Bunch filling the airwaves with light entertainment sketches and a sprinkling of camp comedy. But before the Brady Bunch returned, another offbeat family tried – and failed – to make a variety show comeback. The Addams Family had only lasted two years as a ’60s sitcom, but became a TV mainstay in syndicated repeats, giving the ghoulish characters a healthy afterlife. In 1972, Hanna-Barbera animated the Addams characters with the voice talents of most of the original cast for a CBS Scooby-Doo crossover special. Scooby may have put the Addams Family in CBS’ sights, as the following year the network’s distribution arm Viacom spearheaded a variety pilot titled The…

▸ RELEASED 14 JULY 12A | 83 minutes ▸ Director Tomohisa Taguchi ▸ Cast Marie Iitoyo, Oji Suzuka → There’s a strangely haunting quality to this anime film about a troubled teenage boy called Toro who discovers a mysterious tunnel one night after running away from home. Bathed in strange lights and seemingly endless, the tunnel gives you what you most desire. There’s a catch, though: time moves differently inside the tunnel, with minutes taking hours in the real world and hours taking years. When Toro meets aloof new girl Anzu, the two teens are drawn together as they experiment with the tunnel, both wanting impossible things that drive them deeper inside. The story is refreshingly heavyweight, tackling the ways that abusive parents, grief and low self-esteem can bring damaged…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1958 | 12 | DVD ▸ Director Robert Day ▸ Cast Boris Karloff, Jean Kent, Elizabeth Allan, Anthony Dawson → The Karloff brand may have lost some of its ghoulish allure by the late ’50s, but it was still potent enough to bag him top billing on this vicious little British horror. At first it feels like a bait-and-switch, exploiting the name without delivering the icon. Karloff gives a genteel, rather stagey performance as a novelist turned social reformer, out to prove the innocence of a man hanged for a killing spree 20 years earlier. The striking, coffin-worthy features immortalised in 1931’s Frankenstein have long gone. He looks like he belongs in a gentleman’s club, not some lightning-blasted lab. Filled with can-can girls, Champagne Charlies and…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 12+ | SVOD ▸ Director David Gelb DISNEY+ Yes, that’s the title. No fancy wordplay, no grand mythologising. ’Nuff said? Commissioned to celebrate the centenary of the comic book genius but arriving a year late, this documentary now finds a home on Disney+, which rather bestows the status of a state-approved biography, given Marvel’s assimilation by the House of Mouse. It’s an efficient, engaging telling of Stanley Lieber’s story, from his secret origin in the Great Depression, source of a ferocious work ethic, to his adoption of the Stan Lee persona and his ultimate status as pop-culture treasure. Lee’s familiar, folksy voice is our guide, stitching together archival interview clips, strikingly animated comic panels and scene-setting period footage spanning the 20th century. Some sequences…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 15 | Download → Ever misremembered a brand name? Blame a physicist! According to The Breach, CERN has been messing with black magic, opening portals to other dimensions, and causing reality glitches. Pesky boffins. Glimmers of something interesting occasionally shine through the dull relationship drama of this Lovecraftian cosmic horror, but the pacing’s off; it feels like a six-part series crunched into 92 minutes. Some gooey effects in the final reel end things on a high note, but overall it’s aggressively mediocre.…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 15 | Blu-ray/download → This economical tale sees two sisters in 1941 using a machine to view transmissions from the future. On teaming up with military intelligence, their hubris has dire consequences. The found-footage formatting is often strained, but it’s an ingenious effort, which tweaks newsreel footage to create effects an indie forebear took years to achieve… What sticks with you is the music – both a jazzy ’40s take on “You Really Got Me”, and disturbing pop from a dark future timeline. + Extras Director/producer commentary.…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2022 | 15 | VOD ▸ Director Anita Rocha da Silveira ▸ Cast Mari Oliveria, Lara Tremouroux, Joana Medeiros → Dually inspired by the Greek myth of Medusa (made monstrous as punishment for an affair) and news stories of girl gangs beating up women deemed promiscuous, Anita Rocha da Silveira’s film imagines a day-in-the-future Brazil where masked evangelicals patrol the streets terrorising “sluts”. After having her face slashed by a victim who fought back, Mari (Mari Oliveira) becomes fascinated by an actress who was set on fire years ago, taking a job nursing coma patients in the hope of tracking her down. What she finds leads her to fear she’s become possessed… Although the film never takes flight into fully fledged fantasy, da Silveira employs familiar genre tactics:…

More recent movies coming to disc include horror-comedy RENFIELD (17 July, Blu-ray/DVD), in which Nicolas Cage plays Dracula and Nicholas Hoult the long-suffering underling who’s had enough. We said: “A four-course banquet of gory splatstick… A rare film that might have benefited from being a little longer.” Bonuses include a commentary, 17 minutes of deleted scenes, a look at a trimmed dance sequence and five more featurettes. A family’s move to a spooky abbey is the spark for demonic doings in THE POPE’S EXORCIST (out now, DVD); Russell Crowe waves the crucifix as real-life priest Father Gabriel Amorth. We said: “Throws every demonic trick at the screen… Silly but not entirely unwatchable.” Extras: two featurettes, totalling 11 minutes. Earthlings return to pillage Pandora in AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER (out…

▸ RELEASED 20 JULY 300 pages | Paperback/ebook ▸ Author Eve Smith ▸ Publisher Orenda Books → With global warming causing worldwide eco-chaos, an ultra-radical political party called ONE comes to power in the UK. Its ideology is based on controlling ever-decreasing resources, and its main policy is the one-child law. Kai works in the Ministry of Population and Family Planning as what is known as a “baby reaper”, rigorously making sure that no one spawns a second child. She’s convinced the party knows best – until she discovers the horrifying truth about her own family. Eve Smith has been building a reputation as the new Michael Crichton, with a brace of well-received techno-thrillers under her belt. One is another solid, sci-fi conspiracy nailbiter, with nods to such current real…

▸ RELEASED 13 JULY 186/167/160/183/249 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Authors Phil Ford, Keith Temple, Pete McTighe, Peter Harness, Stephen Gallagher ▸ Publisher BBC Books Prepare to rearrange your bookshelves, Who fans, as the latest batch of additions to the classic Target range is here. The Waters Of Mars ( ) is a briskly-paced “base under siege” tale, complicated by the fact that the destruction of a Mars base due to a water-based parasite is a “fixed point in time” the Doctor’s not supposed to meddle with. Adapting the 2009 episode he co-wrote with Russell T Davies, Phil Ford makes sensible tweaks (the infected humans’ bodies now reabsorb the water constantly flowing out of them). The addition of an ancient warning from the Ice Warriors is also a neat touch. Most…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 448 pages | Paperback/ebook ▸ Author Verity M Holloway ▸ Publisher Titan Books → The spectre of the Great War looms over this historical novel, both figuratively and literally. It’s 1917, and most of England’s young men have been sent off to the front in France. Most, but not all. At a Norfolk wellness retreat, bird-loving groundskeeper Freddie meets troubled rich kid Eustace, and the two of them become close. But as the retreat fills up with injured soldiers, Freddie and Eustace find the war has come to them – most terrifyingly, in the shape of an undead creature lurking beyond Edenwell’s walls. There’s no shortage of stories about the horrors of war, but this feels like a completely original take. The enforced isolation of Edenwell…

▸ RELEASED 13 JULY 352 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Philip Fracassi ▸ Publisher Orbit → This chilly supernatural novel is not lacking in horror clichés, but Philip Fracassi’s assured writing and a somewhat vicious streak make for a compelling read. Following the death of his parents, young Peter Barlow is sent to St Vincent’s Orphanage for Boys in rural Pennsylvania. It’s a harsh place, freezing cold and ruled over by the cruel Father Poole and his enforcer, Brother Johnson. Into this hotbed of bullying and abuse comes the local sheriff, bringing with him a sickly stranger. The man doesn’t survive the night, but his arrival changes something in the orphanage, and in the boys. Soon, Peter and a handful of others are forced to fight for their survival. Boys…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▸ Publisher IDW ▸ Writer Christopher Cantwell ▸ Artist Angel Unzueta ISSUES 1-4 If Star Trek – IDW’s team book – is the Federation’s Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, then Defiant is its Dark Avengers. Stemming from a disagreement between Worf and Sisko, it opens with the Klingon stealing the titular starship and assembling a band of confederates including Spock, B’Elanna Torres, Ro Laren and Data’s malevolent twin Lore. Drawing heavily on events in the flagship title, the four issues to date can prove confusing if you’re not familiar with that series – a situation exacerbated by its setting up of this month’s Day Of Blood crossover, which pits both Sisko and Worf’s crews against the cloned Klingon Emperor Kahless II. With Christopher Cantwell conveying much of what unfolds…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! (collection out 9 August) ▸ Publisher Image Comics ▸ Writer Mark Millar ▸ Artists Various ISSUES 1-6 Like Thunderbirds crossed with Dial H For Hero, The Ambassadors’ core idea of a global taskforce of superheroes who draw their powers from a central database has endless potential, and it’s one that’s adeptly executed across this six-parter. With the first five issues concentrating on heroes from Korea, Brazil, India, France and Australia respectively, the stories are mostly self-contained as they focus on a specific character’s induction into the ranks of the Ambassadors; issue three’s French Batman and Robin-esque mother and son team and issue five’s reformed right-wing Aussie politician are highlights. A subplot involving Ambassadors founder Choon-He’s ongoing battle with her corrupt husband builds up gradually, before coming to…

THE RASCALLY DEMON Crowley (David Tennant) and the neurotic angel Aziraphale (Michael Sheen) put aside their differences to pull off one doozy of a Hail Mary and prevent an impending Apocalypse in Good Omens’ first season. The task cemented the pair’s unconventional friendship. So what are divine beings, who have fallen out of grace with both Heaven and Hell, to do for an encore? The answer lies with archangel Gabriel (Jon Hamm), who shows up unannounced on the doorstep of Aziraphale’s London bookshop. Suddenly, Aziraphale and Crowley are caught up in a caper of biblical proportions – but also a more intimate tale. “It’s a mystery,” showrunner Neil Gaiman tells SFX. “It kicks off a story that doesn’t have giant consequences for the universe, even if it does have consequences…

WHENEVER A NEW version of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comes along, Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael are always three things: they are mutants; they are ninjas; and they are turtles. They are, however, very rarely actually teenagers, and that’s something Jeff Rowe – the director behind the half-shell heroes’ next big-screen animated outing Mutant Mayhem – wanted to correct. “We wanted a teenager to watch the movie and feel seen by it and understood,” he tells SFX. “That was our cornerstone for everything, like making the Turtles not hulking, ripped versions of themselves, but lanky and awkward. That carried through into casting actual teenagers. It’s insane that it had never been done before.” “Insane” may be a good way to describe a lot of Mutant Mayhem. Rowe – along…

WHEN IT COMES TO AMERICAN television, if a new series makes it on air and manages to last a season, that’s almost a miracle. If that series becomes a hit and lives on for multiple seasons, the creators have truly beaten the odds. And then sometimes you get a unicorn like Futurama. The animated series created by Matt Groening (The Simpsons) and David X Cohen premiered in 1999 on the Fox Network, where it aired for four seasons before it was cancelled. Based on the strengths of its reruns, Futurama was revived by Comedy Central in 2008, where it lived for three more seasons. Ten years later, in an unprecedented turn of events for any TV series, Futurama is again back from the dead with two new seasons made for…

DAN: This is the statue of Fuxi who, originally, was going to be the brother of the Creator twins who was involved in the Mogwai mythology. We ended up later on swapping it out for his sister Nüwa. There’s a statue that resides in the heart of Jade Valley where he holds this magic carving knife that is all the power. JADE VALLEY: HOME OF THE MOGWAI DAN: We knew the very bare bones of the story were that Mr Wing was 10 years old in Shanghai in 1920. He meets Gizmo and takes him across China to his ancestral home, which is in the Himalayas. So it’s going to be sort of a Journey To The West story. We knew that we started in Shanghai and ended up in…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 12A | 127 minutes ▸ Director Steven Caple Jr ▸ Cast Anthony Ramos, Dominique Fishback, Pete Davidson, Peter Cullen → Looking to keep the Transformers bandwagon rolling, Rise Of The Beasts represents a tone somewhere between Travis Knight’s smaller, more heartfelt Bumblebee and the bombastic tech fetish of main franchise director Michael Bay. The result is blander than you might have hoped for. Crammed full of long-winded exposition about warp portal keys and giant, planet-eating machines (Unicron, best known from 1986’s animated movie, and here voiced by Colman Domingo), the new film at least offers its human characters (former soldier Noah, played by Anthony Ramos, and Dominique Fishback’s museum researcher Elena) half-decent motivations before they’re plunged into the midst of a metal-on-metal battle. And guess what? The…

UK Paramount+, first part of box set 13 July US Peacock, streaming now ▸ Showrunner Martin Gero ▸ Cast Raymond Lee, Caitlin Bassett, Mason Alexander Park, Nanrisa Lee, Ernie Hudson, Susan Diol EPISODES 1.01-1.18 Being mean about this update of Quantum Leap feels like kicking a puppy. The show so desperately wants to be a worthy heir to the much-loved ’90s time-travel classic, and does some creditable work capturing the socially progressive spirit and oddball charm of the original. But while the earlier series was a bunch of potentially goofy/cringey elements alchemically transformed into TV gold by great casting and fine writing, this new version suffers from a slew of misfiring decisions that no amount of good will can disguise. It isn’t a remake but a continuation of the old show,…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 18+ | SVOD ▸ Directors Casper Christensen, Anthony Hines ▸ Cast Jack Whitehall, Shailene Woodley, Paul Jurewicz, Paul Rust PRIME VIDEO RELEASED to so little fanfare it barely made a blip at the US box office, Robots lands in the UK on streaming. A shame, as this techno-comedy from Borat co-writer Anthony Hines and Danish comedian Casper Christensen has more to recommend it than the treatment might suggest. Based on a 1973 short story by Robert Sheckley, this tale of a future America where robots have replaced immigrants as the working class picks some easy targets (right-wingers; dumb, attention-seeking cops etc). Yet its tale of a womaniser Charles (Jack Whitehall) and a golddigger Elaine (Shailene Woodley) who use their robotic duplicates to scam dates for…

▸ RELEASED 24 JULY 2023 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download ▸ Directors Ka-Wai Kam, Donnie Yen ▸ Cast Donnie Yen, Chen Yuqi, Wu Yue, Kara Wai → Co-directed and produced by legendary star Donnie Yen, this wuxia film feels like a vanity project, even if Yen didn’t write it. He’s cast himself as a thirty-something, despite being in his late fifties, and the action’s bruised by the decision. Heavy on wirework and cheesy CG, with little grounded realism, the fight sequences are fun but too cartoonish to leave a lingering impression. It’s a shame, as they’re actually the best parts of the movie. Intense sound design sells the hits, but each scrap feels stop-start, even when sped-up, making every frenzied encounter a mixed punching bag. Set during the Song Empire, the…

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA (24 July) is the movie cut of the pilot of the ’70s TV series. We said: “A choppy, rambling slog… But the decades have bestowed a retro halo; wallow in the flash, shallow ’70s space opera joy of it all.” Bonus-wise there’s frack all, but it does come in “all over gloss” Steelbook packaging. The physical goodies are the main draw of the 30th Anniversary Collector’s Edition of JURASSIC PARK (out now), comprising a film cell replica, four art cards, a 44-page booklet and a certificate of authenticity. Gosh, you might need to update the will. We said: “Spielberg at his summer blockbuster best, this is thrill cinema at its very best… It’s barely dated at all.” Arguably the high point of Jim Carrey’s CV, Peter Weir’s THE…

▸ RELEASED 17 JULY 2023 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download → Making a killer shark movie in a world where The Meg and Deep Blue Sea already exist is not the greatest of ideas, especially when your film’s hobbled by a meagre budget. Adrian Grünberg gets round this by focusing more on the family at the centre of the action than the titular megalodon (which is menacing an oil rig off the Mexican coast). This would be fine if the family weren’t so irritating. The results are so tortuous, they make Sharknado look like Jaws. + Extras A two-minute featurette.…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2023 | 15 | SVOD ▸ Director Daina Reid ▸ Cast Sarah Snook, Lily LaTorre, Damon Herriman, Greta Scacchi NETFLIX Though this Aussie chiller also centres on the relationship between a mother and a child, it isn’t in the same league as The Babadook. With its sombre tone and focus on familial dysfunction, it’s very much elevated horror. Sarah Snook is Sarah, mother to little Mia (Lily LaTorre). After her seventh birthday, Mia begins acting strangely, developing an obsessive interest in meeting Sarah’s estranged mother (now in a care home), and insisting that she is a girl in old photos – Sarah’s sister Alice, who went missing in childhood. The kid who claims they’re actually a dead person is a well-worn horror trope, stretching back to…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 368 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Paul Tremblay ▸ Publisher Titan Books → There’s a monster out there, and it’s coming to get you. That’s the main take-away from almost all of the 15 stories in this new collection by Paul Tremblay. Yes, the monster might take different forms, but it’s definitely out there, and it’s definitely coming to get you. A sense of inevitability permeates the whole collection; Tremblay mostly eschews quick scares in favour of an uncanny atmosphere of creeping and inescapable dread. (If you caught Knock At The Cabin, M Night Shyamalan’s adaptation of The Cabin At The End Of The World, you’ll have some idea of the vibe. Though Tremblay’s not to blame for the awful ending of the movie.) In the…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! 450 pages | Paperback/ebook ▸ Author Stephen Aryan ▸ Publisher Angry Robot → At first glance, The Judas Blossom appears to be a work of historical fiction akin to Bernard Cornwell, rooted in a real time and place. In this case, it’s Persia circa 1260 as the voracious Mongol Empire expands ever westward. The tale unfolds through four distinct voices; Hulagu is the leader of the military campaign but discontent stirs within the Ilkhanate over the selection of the next Great Khan, threatening to unleash civil war. Kokochin is Hulagu’s newest bride, the last survivor of her tribe, spared for her beauty. Kaivon is a Persian warrior seeking revenge against the Mongols for conquering his people. Lastly, Temujin is Hulagu’s son, whose lack of bloodthirstiness is a…

▸ RELEASED 20 JULY 352 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Stacey Thomas ▸ Publisher HQ → Historical fiction can be hit or miss. Some authors can bore the reader with infodumps about the era, while others introduce modern-day anachronisms and lose authenticity. Stacey Thomas has managed to avoid both faults in her debut novel, which is set during the English Civil War, and that’s commendable. Unfortunately, however, The Revels’ plot could fit on the back of a postage stamp. Nicholas Pearce is apprenticed to a former witch-hunter turned judge who must decide whether a string of women accused of witchcraft are guilty. Awkwardly, Nicholas is a witch himself: he can hear the dead singing. It’s a fascinating scenario, but little actually happens except for endless repetitive conversations, and the book’s…

▸ RELEASED 20 JULY 288 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author John Romero ▸ Publisher Abrams Press → John Romero is the co-creator of the most influential modern videogames franchise, Doom. But his story has a gritty start. He grew up in a young part-Mexican, part-Yaqui family with a violent father and uncles who ran drugs. His precocious talent gave him an escape route into computing, and by the age of 15, he was coding for the USAF in Cambridgeshire. The bulk of this autobiography details the three significant incidents fans want to hear about: id Software blowing everyone’s mind with Doom; the troubled launch of Quake leading to Romero’s split from id; and the subsequent humiliation of Romero’s 2000 mega-flop Daikatana. Doom Guy is not gossipy. Romero puts his side…

▸ RELEASED 18 JULY 523 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▸ Author Sara Hashem ▸ Publisher Orbit → That feeling when you’re 20 pages from the end of a novel and you realise the story isn’t going to end in this volume… as genre readers, we’ve all been there, although it never makes “To be continued” sting any less, especially when the beginning of the story is as compelling as Sara Hashem’s debut. Sylvia is a chemist’s apprentice in a backwater village. She’s also, secretly and very reluctantly, Essiya, last surviving heir to a neighbouring kingdom, Jasad, that was destroyed 10 years ago. Brutalised and bitter, Sylvia wants nothing more than a quiet life with no ties to anyone or anything, but before you can say, “Oops, I accidentally murdered a guard”,…

▸ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▸ Publisher Image Comics ▸ Writer Rockwell White ▸ Artists Curt Pires ISSUES 1-5 This gripping sci-fi thriller is one of the year’s most engaging new comics. Donovan Price is a journalist investigating a very strange story. He’s heard tales of people with special powers – rumours which he has good reason to believe. His journey takes him to Russia, where he meets Alexei, one of four such “Indigos”, now an adult. Setting out to locate the others (including a pair rather unfortunately called Fred and Rose… does no one English work at Image?), they draw the attention of some very dangerous enemies indeed. Indigo Children isn’t breaking any new ground. Despite its adult themes and language, this is still basically a superhero story, albeit one that…