Table of contents for May 2025 in SFX

THE ENDING OF THE FLAGSHIP THE WALKING DEAD SERIES after 11 seasons in 2022 certainly didn’t slow down AMC Networks’ ambitions for their television universe. In fact, it freed up several of its most popular actors/characters for their own spin-offs, including Norman Reedus and Melissa McBride for their European-set Daryl Dixon; Andrew Lincoln and Danai Gurira reuniting for Rick and Michonne’s interrupted love story in The Ones Who Live; and former mortal enemies Maggie Rhee and Negan (Lauren Cohan and Jeffrey Dean Morgan) hiking up to New York City for a dire mission in Dead City. Of the three series, the biggest head-scratcher of the bunch was Dead City, mostly because after former Saviors leader Negan brutally bashed in the head of Maggie’s beloved Glenn Rhee (Steven Yeun) in season…

AS ANYONE INVOLVED IN THE MCU discovers, there’s an essential truth when it comes to comics fandom. Every title, every issue, every polybagged piece of paper history is a sacred text to somebody. “I’m aware of people being like, ‘They didn’t do the thing!’” smiles Jake Schreier, director of Thunderbolts*. “They didn’t do the thing from the first one!” Yes, Thunderbolts* doesn’t just append a cryptic asterisk to Marvel’s most morally dubious supergroup, this big-screen iteration dares to tell an altogether different origin story than the one enshrined on the comic book page and familiar to long-term fans. Gone is the key twist of a bunch of supervillains duping the world by masquerading as do-gooders, only to be exposed as the rascally Masters of Evil (that’s the thing, by the…

THE FUN PART OF ANY design process – but on this show more than anything – is that you’ve got to unpack it all. You’ve got to read the script, then unpack it all and put it on the desk in front of you and go, “Right, how do we put that back together again so that as an audience you can see it on the screen?” We had a lot of conversations about scale: we’d talk about how big Wembley is, how big the O2 is, how many people sit in there, how far away are they from the performance, and how you create the spectacle for such a huge amount of people that are effectively pin pricks in the distance. We landed on an auditorium that could take…

FOR ALAIN CHABAT, history is repeating. Not the kind of history that could ever be unearthed by archaeologists, but the one recorded by the combined genius of René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo. A colourful, knockabout past, bursting with killer puns and sorcerous potions, plucky Gauls and hapless Romans. A past forever fixed at 50 bc. “I love this universe,” Chabat tells SFX. “I could do this as a job, just doing Asterix, all my life. I love the characters. They’re funny and they’re charming. They have a lot of heart.” In 2002, Chabat wrote and directed Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra, a live-action take on the scrappy Gaul warriors. Now he’s one of the key creative forces behind Asterix & Obelix: The Big Fight, a TV mini-series that brings the…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 109 minutes ▶ Director Marc Webb ▶ Cast Rachel Zegler, Gal Gadot, Andrew Burnap, Jeremy Swift → This Disney live-action remake arrives choking on a poison apple filled with political and ableist controversies. Reimagined from the 1937 original, it’s been yelled at, re-edited, re-assessed and rejected, with leadsRachel Zegler and Gal Gadot on opposite sides of a literal war. It’s too late to debate whether there was wisdom in remaking a film so famously fraught with outdated attitudes to dwarfism. And as a Disney fairy tale, it’s really not bad. Zegler could sing her way out of a straitjacket, her mighty vocals contrasting with her sweet performance as people’s princess Snow White. Gadot, as the evil Queen, is too similar to Angelina Jolie’s Maleficent;…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 88 minutes ▶ Director Jaume Collet-Serra ▶ Cast Danielle Deadwyler, Okwui Okpokwasili, Russell Hornsby, Peyton Jackson → Before his time as an action director, Jaume Collet-Serra broke out as a horror filmmaker with the likes of House Of Wax and Orphan, so hopes were high for his return to the genre in stripped-down Blumhouse style. The result, however, is something of a misfire. Danielle Deadwyler gives it her all as Ramona, a woman crippled by grief and hobbling on crutches following the car crash that killed her husband, yet the story is so slight as to better suit a short film. Ramona and her kids are picking up the pieces (and unpaid bills) in their remote farmhouse when a mysterious woman shows up in…

▶ RELEASED 5 MAY 2024 | 18 | Blu-ray ▶ Director DW Medoff ▶ Cast Kenneth Trujillo, Katerina Eichenberger, Christopher Genovese, Kimberly Maxwell → Newly paroled, a mute man accepts an offer to stay for six days in an allegedly cursed house to purge it of evil spirits. As flashbacks chart a fracturing marriage that ended in tragedy, director DW Medoff slowly accumulates the dread, evoking a sense of not-rightness from the raw materials of dust, stillness and sunlight, along with a powerfully internalised performance by lead Kenneth Trujillo that hints at the damage within. It’s a story about grief told, at first, with empathy and restraint. Too soon it’s undercut by jump scares and revelations, the tone ultimately pinwheeling between black comedy, folk horror and vicious splatter-fest. It might…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2025 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download → Director, co-writer and co-star Matthew Ninaber creates a vision of screen hell here, though probably not the way he intended. From an opening scene in which a woman is burned at the stake, this small-scale swords-and-sorcery nonsense is unrelentingly bleak and gruesome. As brave knight Bhodie (Jeremy Ninaber) dies again and again, the over-earnest dialogue and incoherent, bad videogame plotting mean you share his pain throughout. + Extras None.…

▶ RELEASED 28 APRIL 2024 | 12 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Junichi Yasuda ▶ Cast Makiya Yamaguchi, Norimasa Fuke, Yuno Sakura → This Japanese indie won Best Film at their equivalent of the Oscars last month. That’s a heartwarming human story – writer/director/DOP Junichi Yasuda, whose day job is rice farming, is the quintessential plucky underdog – but rather surprising. It’s not a bad film, just an inconsequential one. Makiya Yamaguchi plays a samurai who’s facing off with an opponent when a lightning strike catapults him to the modern day. Waking up on the set of a period drama, he eventually puts his sword skills to use as a jobbing stuntman. For most of the film’s two hour-plus duration it barely skims the surface of this concept, with huge depths…

Released digitally last year, THE COFFEE TABLE (28 April, Blu-ray) is a dark, often bleakly comic Spanish drama centred on a bickering middle-aged couple with a newborn. We said: “Essentially one long, horribly tense wait for the revelation of a secret the audience are in on.” The Limited Edition comes with critical commentary, three interviews, a video essay, two shorts, a 120-page book and six art cards. Michelle Yeoh returns as Philippa Georgiou in standalone movie SECTION 31 (28 April, 4K/Blu-ray/DVD), leading a maverick squad tasked with tracking down a bioweapon. We said: “A numbskull actionfest that has zero interest in high-minded philosophising… A decent amount of undemanding fun.” Extras: five featurettes and a gag reel. In SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3 (out now, 4K/Blu-ray/DVD) Sonic and pals must stop alien…

▶ RELEASED 24 APRIL 320 pages | Paperback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Catriona Silvey ▶ Publisher HarperCollins → If you discovered how your life was going to pan out in the future, would it affect the way you behave today? And could that change in behaviour then cause a timey-wimey paradox that would stop it from ever happening? This is the dilemma faced by Cambridge University student Joe Greene. He dreams of becoming a world-famous poet, but after bumping into a time traveller from the future, he discovers that this actually is his destiny. As he grapples with the news, he realises that his future fame stems from him falling in love with a fellow student, Diana. Should he introduce himself to her now? Or would that disrupt his future? Time traveller…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 384 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Veronika Dapunt ▶ Publisher Bantam → After millennia feeling undervalued, Death decides to take a sabbatical on Earth in the guise of a human. Initially she’s none too enamoured with the corporeal identity her sister, Life, chooses for her: a female lawyer in a struggling legal firm. But when she learns of a death that doesn’t conform to god’s great plan, it proves the perfect disguise for investigating a unholy whodunnit with existential repercussions. Chief suspect is Satan, or the VP of Pandemonium and Perdition as he’s known these days, but he would be, wouldn’t he? This fast-paced supernatural comedy doesn’t have quite the satirical bite of Terry Pratchett, the unhinged lunacy of Robert Rankin or the ingenious word play…

▶ RELEASED 6 MAY 528 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Dani Francis ▶ Publisher Del Rey → A dystopian society where people with supernatural powers are hunted and killed? Check. A rebellion operating under the noses of an authoritarian regime? Check. A female-led, enemies-to-lovers tale with lashings of steamy sex? Check. No points for originality, then, but even if you’ve read stories like this a thousand times before, you’ll be sucked into Silver Elite with the force of the tornado that whisked Dorothy away to Oz. That’s because debut author Dani Francis knows how to dish out tense, pacy world building. Wren Darlington is our narrator: a Mod (psychic) forced into training for a group known as Silver Elite – soldiers who kill her kind. Able to pass as an…

▶ RELEASED 24 APRIL 240 pages | Hardback/ebook ▶ Author Sayaka Murata ▶ Publisher Granta Books → Even in the weirdest of sci-fi worlds, storytellers tend to use familiar human notions like family as a shorthand to help us relate to alien characters. Vanishing World (originally published in Japan back in 2015) flips that cosy notion on its head, as author Sayaka Murata rewrites the rules of love and marriage. In her alternative present, old-school sex is falling out of fashion, and is considered incest if it takes place between spouses. Instead, people get their kicks by masturbating to anime characters, or through societally acceptable affairs. Marriage mostly exists to raise families, with all kids conceived via artificial insemination. The story’s narrated by Amane, who’s always had an unconventional attitude…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 188 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Agustina Bazterrica ▶ Publisher Pushkin Press → Argentine author Agustina Bazterrica’s books are not for the faint-hearted. This post-apocalyptic tale traps readers within a hierarchical community – all-female but for the never-seen “He” at the pyramid’s apex – where cruel punishments are a regular occurrence, and about the only pleasure left is seeing them inflicted upon others. In the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, self-abnegation blurs into self-mutilation. Above the Unworthy are the Chosen – who’ve had their mouths sewn shut, eardrums perforated, or tongues cut out. Higher still: the Enlightened. Meting out discipline is the whip-wielding Superior Sister. We learn about this merciless sanctuary from the “ravaged lands” through a wad of pages secretly scribbled by one sister, seeing…

RELEASED OUT NOW! Publisher Image Comics Writer Rick Remender Artist Paul Azaceta ISSUES 1-3 Image has billed this original series from Deadly Class creator Rick Remender and artist Paul Azaceta as “an elevated tale of whimsical horror unlike anything ever experienced in comics.” That’s too bold a claim – if anything The Seasons wears its influences on its sleeves – but it’s certainly one of the year’s most exciting and intriguing new comics. The title refers to four sisters, the daughters of a renowned detective duo who have vanished in mysterious circumstances. While 14-year-old Spring works as a courier in vibrant New Gaulia, adventurer Autumn is searching for their parents. Along the way she discovers a sinister carnival that leaves devastation in its wake – and which is headed for the…

ALREADY ROCKED BY their own seismic storylines such as Venom War and End Of The Spider-Verse, the worlds of Marvel’s various Webheads and Lethal Protectors are now coming into conflict in Spider-Verse Vs Venomverse. “Everything’s canon, right?” laughs Kyle Higgins, who co-writes with Mat Groom. “The beauty of Marvel’s long and storied history is that everything counts, all new stories build on what comes before, and while you don’t necessarily have to be familiar with them, they absolutely lay the foundations. If Spider-Verse Vs Venomverse is the culmination of anything, it’s the relationship between Peter Parker and Eddie Brock – and the relationship between Spiders and Symbiotes as a whole. They’re so often at odds, but so inextricably linked… and they’re finally going to have to reckon with that contradiction.”…

For years, we’ve seen a very confident Maggie who leads with authority. But in season two, she’s really unmoored for the first time trying to parent Hershel. • When we got into season two, Eli and the writers showed these flawed aspects of her that were accessed through the impossibility of parenting. You’re never gonna get to the end of the day and feel like you [parented] right. The rules constantly change, and then the game is constantly changing. You can be capable as Maggie is in a million ways, but these very domestic, quiet, private things are so challenging. And if you’ve never done them, and even if you have, they’re not easy. There’s also competition for his respect, too? • Yes, children can’t just have their parents, right?…

FOR THE MEAN ONE DIRECTOR Steven LaMorte, a long-held desire to set a horror movie aboard a Staten Island ferry perfectly aligned with the classic 1928 Mickey Mouse cartoon “Steamboat Willie” entering the public domain. “A lot of people don’t know this, but the ferry was originally steam-powered,” LaMorte tells SFX. “I said, ‘What if you threw a killer mouse on there, with New York City as a backdrop?’ And, you know, one thing led to another.” The result is the horror parody Screamboat. With the producers of the Terrifier sequels on board, writer-director LaMorte cast Art the Clown actor David Howard Thornton – with whom he had previously worked on The Mean One – as the malevolent mouse who really doesn’t want the ferry’s staff and passengers to live…

WHEN SFX connects with Arjen Tuiten via Zoom, it’s immediately clear that he’s a fan of '30s and '40s horror, as a sinister figure is looming over his left shoulder… “Oh yeah, that’s Lon Chaney,” the make-up effects designer says. “That’s an oil painting I did many years ago.” There are similar portraits on display at his effects studio, Arjen LLC. “I have a few drawings I did maybe 20 years ago. One is Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, and we have [Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde star] Fredric March upstairs in the sculpting room.” Tuiten then turns his laptop to the right, revealing a portrait on the opposite wall: Boris Karloff as Ardath Bey (aka Imhotep) in 1932’s The Mummy. The week we speak, he’s working on test make-ups…

1 Created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley, the team first appeared in The Incredible Hulk 449, dated January 1997. They promised to protect the world after the fall of the Avengers in the Onslaught crossover. 2 In April 1997 the final page of Thunderbolts 1 revealed that they were really supervillains in disguise, assembled by Captain America’s old nemesis Baron Zemo. 3 Zemo’s scheme was to access the secrets of the Avengers and SHIELD and sell them to the underworld’s highest bidder. And maybe deliver a killer “Gotcha!” to the entire planet. 4 The original team of villains-indisguise included Citizen V (Baron Zemo), Mach-1 (The Beetle), Techno (Fixer), Atlas (Goliath), Songbird (Screaming Mimi) and Meteorite (Moonstone). 5 Subsequent incarnations of the team were created by Norman Osborn, the Winter Soldier, the Red…

NEVER UNDERESTIMATE EXPERIMENT 626 – that squat, big-eared, sharp-toothed, extraterrestrial terror better known as Stitch. When the first trailer for Disney’s live-action/CG-hybrid remake of 2002’s Lilo & Stitch dropped online, it amassed a gargantuan 158 million views within 24 hours, the second-most for any Disney live-action film, behind 2019’s The Lion King. “Honestly, I felt a little bit like, ‘Told you so!’” jokes its director, Dean Fleischer Camp. “I don’t know why, but it always felt like an underdog thing to convince people that audiences really cared about Stitch.” He may not have a drop of royal lineage in his blood, but for the past two decades Stitch has quietly conquered Disney’s fairy tale kingdom, starring in a string of sequels and globe-spanning TV spin-offs, while turning up on every…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! PG | 101 minutes ▶ Director Jared Hess ▶ Cast Jason Momoa, Jack Black, Danielle Brooks, Jennifer Coolidge → “We’re not in Idaho anymore!” ex videogame champ Garrett (Jason Momoa) quips on being transported into the psychedelic Minecraft universe. And there is an Ozian element to the “Overworld”, a land of cubic blocks where anything can be built in seconds. There are worse templates for director Jared Hess to follow. Garrett and his three human companions – teenager Natalie (Emma Myers), her brother Henry (Sebastian Hansen) and animal lover Dawn (Danielle Brooks) – try to find the exit without being eliminated by evil sorceress Malgosha and her rapacious pig army. Jack Black, meanwhile, gleefully stands in for the Wizard as Steve, a Minecraft expert with his…

UK/US Netflix, streaming now ▶ Creator Charlie Brooker ▶ Cast Rashida Jones, Siena Kelly, Issa Rae, Peter Capaldi, Paul Giamatti, Cristin Milioti EPISODES 7.01-7.06 After an underwhelming fifth season and a sixth which – by bending the format to allow horror tales without a technological focus – somehow felt a little like it was cheating, the latest run of Charlie Brooker’s anthology series is an unqualified return to form, combining the the show’s trademark bleak twists with the return of old favourites, and also a sizeable amount of pathos. “USS Callister: Into Infinity”, a feature-length sequel to a season four favourite, is the most eye-catching entry. Quesioning whether he really left its “digital clone” heroes in a happy place, Brooker and his co-writers cleverly unpack the universe of MMO game Infinity…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1984 | 12 | 4K & Blu-ray ▶ Director Charles Band ▶ Cast Tim Thomerson, Helen Hunt, Michael Stefani, Art LaFleur → One of three films from Charles Band’s Empire Pictures reviewed this issue, Trancers is the apogee of its output, thanks to neat concepts, a witty script, and art direction that makes a silk purse from a financial sow’s ear. A low-rent meld of Blade Runner and ’40s noir, this time-travel tale sees Tim Thomerson’s ex-cop, the improbably named Jack Deth, jumping back into the body of an ancestor in 1985 LA, in pursuit of a cult leader who’s knocking off the forebears of the 23rd century’s ruling council. This neon-lit future is so aesthetically appealing it’s a shame we don’t get to spend more…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 2025 | N/A | Download → You know the story: father boasts daughter can spin straw into gold, king says “Prove it or I’ll behead her”, daughter makes deal with the Devil. This micro-budget horror is a straightforward adaptation of the fairy tale, just as the Brothers Grimm wrote it down. The only difference? You can’t show it to kids – it’s way too sweary for that. Bizarrely, there are no other attempts to make it more adult: no extra thematic resonance, no gore, no sex. It’s just a sweary fairy tale. Fine, but it’s hard to know who it’s for.…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! OUT NOW! 1982 | 15 | Blu-ray BLU-RAY DEBUT The ’80s slasher boom inspired several spoofs. Here, a loony’s on the loose 13 years after the “Lawnmower Killer” murders. Will he strike again at the Halloween prom? Riffing not only on the likes of Halloween but also Alien, Psycho, The Omen, Saturday Night Fever and more, Wacko takes a “throw everything at the wall” approach. The odd thing sticks (like a “Gates Of Hell: Employees Only” sign), but most of it slides straight down. For ageing fratboys only. + Extras Commentary; trailer; booklet.…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1982 | 18 | Blu-ray ▶ Director John Hough ▶ Cast John Cassavetes, Kerrie Keane, Helen Hughes, Erin Noble BLU-RAY DEBUT This bleak Canadian supernatural horror was based on a 1976 novel by Ray Russell. Though it uses killer’s POV tropes, and is part of 88 Films’ Slasher Classics Collection range, it’s altogether more sober and grown-up than your average Friday The 13th knock-off. That’s in part thanks to a slumming-it John Cassavetes, who brings intensity to the role of a small-town MD, and partly because the killings plaguing Galen – which has a history of witch hunters – involve horrific rapes. There’s no graphic detail, but the descriptions used alone (“ruptured uterus” practically becomes a catchphrase) may make sensitive viewers blanch. The boyfriend of the doctor’s…

▶ RELEASED 6 MAY 576 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Joe Abercrombie ▶ Publisher Gollancz → My Fair Lady meets The Suicide Squad in the first volume of Joe Abercrombie’s new fantasy series. No one is more surprised than she is when Alex, a street urchin and very small-time petty crook, learns that her true identity is Alexia Pyrogennetos, the long-lost daughter of the late Empress Irene and heir to the Serpent Throne of Troy. However, before the very surprised royal heiress can be installed on the throne that’s rightfully hers, there’s the small matter of travelling across Europe while navigating assassin attempts, local wars and the hostile attentions of Alex’s newfound cousins, who all fancy the throne for themselves. To keep the princess safe, she’s entrusted to the guardianship of…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 300 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Eve Smith ▶ Publisher Orenda Books → A treatment that slows down the ageing process opens a Pandora’s box of ethical, social and political controversies in Eve Smith’s near-future thriller. An annual rejuvenation procedure that staves off old age has led to overpopulation and government-enforced euthanasia at age 120. The rich, however, can pay for a black market one-off treatment, making them “Superjuves” who then avoid the death sentence in various illicit ways. But the murder of a Superjuve forces the detective looking into the case to team up with the now-reclusive scientist who unwittingly created the rejuvenation treatment. With the main storyline concentrating on the investigation, flashbacks and archive news reports flesh out the 80-year history of the rejuve…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Lucy Lapinska ▶ Publisher Gollancz → The creation of human-like robots – synths, androids, cyborgs or, in this case, Personal Computer Companions – isn’t new, nor is exploration of their rights and possible autonomy. But this novel, the adult debut from a bestselling children’s/YA author, is a worthy addition to the genre. It begins from the viewpoint of “Abigail”, a PCC created in the image of her owner’s dead wife, and expected to act as her every day. David has created many Rules that she has to follow, but that’s about to change, as Emancipation Day is nearing, when all PCCs will get full rights. Until then, though, they are still property. All this is set against the slow coming…

▶ RELEASED 8 MAY 384 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Emma Newman ▶ Publisher Solaris → Having spent her life on pirate ship The Vengeance, Morgane is devastated when her mother, its captain, is killed in an ambush. Even worse: with her final words, Anna-Marie informs Morgane that she was never her mum in the first place; she’s her aunt, having stolen Morgane away from her real mother as a baby. Said mother is now in France, being held prisoner by an evil Comte. With pistols and swords at the ready (Alexandre Dumas would approve), Morgane sets sail across the Atlantic. Given that this series is titled The Vampires Of Dumas, and several mentions of Morgane’s mother hint that she may not be a nice person, it’s not hard to…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher DC Comics ▶ Writer Jeremy Adams ▶ Artists John Timms ISSUES 1-4 It often feels as though DC isn’t quite sure what to do with Aquaman. Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis’s New 52 run made a virtue of this, telling a tale of a hero who had become a punchline getting his mojo back. It’s also true that the character won some cool back thanks to Jason Momoa’s screen performance. Even so, Arthur Curry hasn’t had a solo comic of his own for five years. This ongoing series changes that. To recap briefly: Darkseid is dead. The result of DC’s Biggest Bad’s passing has fractured reality in two. On the one side is the Absolute Universe line of comics; on the other the mainline continuity…

RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Running time 52 minutes ▶ Format Download ▶ Publisher Big Finish AUDIO DRAMA Stepping beyond Big Finish’s traditional business model, this enigmatically titled audio drama carves out a new world instead of mining an established franchise. Set in the Britain of the 2050s, it’s an intelligent, politically-charged piece that taps current anxieties about capitalism to project a future in which violent revolution has overthrown the one-percenters. In a sly piece of world-building, OCAS stands for Obsessive Capital Accumulation Syndrome, a disorder that explains, if not excuses, the “greedy bloody sods” who ended up against the wall. The story plays out in pseudo-documentary format as a journalist looks back at the uprising from an apparently utopian present, 20 years later. That lends verisimilitude to the storytelling but also…

THE FIRST REFERENCE TO A “robot” in literature came in 1920 when Czech playwright Karel Capek coined the term in his drama RUR to describe artificial workers that eventually overthrow their human creators. Over a hundred years later, there have been countless iterations of robots in books, films and television series, usually either protecting humanity, or just wiping them out. In 2017, award-winning science-fiction author Martha Wells tweaked that trope with her character Murderbot, a firmly human-in-different, media binge-watching robot, who narrates the writer’s The Murderbot Diaries series of novels and short stories. In its space-faring future, Murderbot is a SecUnit (security unit) so apathetic about its job protecting miners that it spends its down time mainlining the soap opera The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, after it surreptitiously…

★ Netflix announced an official documentary, Behind The Curtain: Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which premiered on 15 April. The documentary – directed by Jon Halperin, produced by Angus Wall, Kent Kubena, Terry Leonard and executive produced by Matt Bell – offers a unique backstage look at the West End stage play. It was filmed during the making of the original London production before opening night at the Phoenix Theatre in December 2023. ★ The UK production has begun a casting call for the role of Henry Creel, to take place in London, Glasgow and Dublin. Actors under the height of 5’ 8” who will be aged 18 by September 2025 should contact ST@jessicaronane.com for details. ★ Meanwhile, The First Shadow has opened at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway, with…

UPON ITS RELEASE, Until Dawn was a revelation; a story-centric PlayStation game, featuring voice work by major Hollywood actors Rami Malek and Hayden Panettiere, where every decision you make significantly alters the ending. With almost six hours of cutscenes and a typical playthrough lasting 10 hours, the game is essentially an interactive horror movie about eight twenty-somethings who visit a haunted cabin in the woods. This begs the question: why would anyone bother adapting Until Dawn for the cinema? “The game is already such a cinematic experience, a direct adaptation would feel as if you’re sitting on the couch, watching someone else play,” says writer and producer Gary Dauberman. That didn’t stop Dauberman – best known for scripting Andy Muschietti’s two It adaptations and directing the recent Salem’s Lot –…

BAMBI: THE RECKONING, the fourth instalment in Jagged Edge’s Twisted Childhood Universe, eschews the campy fun of Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey 2 and the gory excesses of Peter Pan’s Neverland Nightmare. Instead, it favours a moodier tone that reflects its source material, author Felix Salten’s 1923 novel Bambi, A Life In The Woods. “At the time of publication it was considered a horror book, in a way,” explains director Dan Allen. “It’s steeped in atmosphere and it’s very dark. And, of course, it’s sad at the same time,” he adds, referring to Bambi’s loss of his mother. Allen, also the editor of Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey 2, was drawn to the project because he enjoys “soppy, sentimental stories. I love horror films that have real emotional hearts – films that…

BEFORE MY DOCTOR WHO EXPERIENCE, I’D always wondered why Russell [T Davies] came back after 12 years away,” Juno Dawson tells SFX. “Now I get it – because it’s so much fun!” An award-winning author and self-professed Doctor Who superfan (her first memory being Bonnie Langford trapped in a giant bubble in Sylvester McCoy’s debut “Time And The Rani”), Dawson is eagerly anticipating 17 May. The date not only marks the 69th edition of the Eurovision Song Contest but also the premiere of her very first Doctor Who television episode. To celebrate, she’s hired a pub. “Of course I’ve hired a pub,” she laughs. “I might never get to write Doctor Who again!” Dawson’s journey to writing for the series began in bed. “Because Russell is a workhorse who doesn’t…

STITCH! THE MOVIE (2003) A feature-length backdoor pilot for a TV series, it introduces us to the previous 625 of Dr Jumba Jookiba’s experiments. LILO & STITCH: THE SERIES (2003) Continuing on from Stitch! The Movie, it sees Lilo and Stitch on a mission to recapture the missing experiments, show them they can be good, and welcome them to their ‘ohana. LILO & STITCH 2: STITCH HAS A GLITCH (2005) A direct-to-video sequel set before the events of Stitch! The Movie, it sees our blue hero start to revert to his old, destructive ways, threatening to drive a wedge between him and Lilo. LEROY & STITCH (2006) The feature-length finale to Lilo & Stitch: The Series, it centres on Experiment 629, otherwise known as Leroy – anear-clone of Stitch, only a little less fluffy…

VISIT LV-426! Celebrate Alien Day with a trip like no other for you and your family. The Weyland-Yutani Corporation welcomes you and your family with open arms to the latest in their terraforming colonies. Take a trip to LV-426 via Aliens Collector’s Edition, available on 4K UHD now. This three-disc set includes the 1986 theatrical edition and 1990 special edition and a host of bonus features including commentaries, making of featurettes and behind-the-scenes information. Get up close with the other occupants of LV-426 like never before, so close you’ll never leave… If other Weyland-Yutani Corporation destinations are of interest, we recommend a visit – albeit not one for sun-seekers – to their Jackson’s Star colony on LV-410. As you approach the planet you might be interested in looking to your…

▶ RELEASED 25 APRIL 18 | 105 minutes ▶ Director Emilie Blichfeldt ▶ Cast Lea Myren, Thea Sofie Loch Næss, Ane Dahl Torp, Isac Calmroth → Norwegian director Emilie Blichfeldt’s debut reimagines Cinderella through a blackly comic body-horror lens. While the film makes salient points about how brutalising your body to conform to beauty standards has been going on since time immemorial, its wonderfully grisly moments appear too infrequently for it to become a true genre classic. Lea Myren delivers as Elvira, the maligned stepsister driven to painful lengths in her pursuit of a prince. Blichfeldt draws on beauty rituals that were sadly around long before anaesthesia was, and shows the world transforming to become kinder towards Elvira as she conforms. The aesthetic is delicious, juxtaposing the pastel opulence of…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 15 | 107 minutes ▶ Director Alex Scharfman ▶ Cast Paul Rudd, Jenna Ortega, Will Poulter, Richard E Grant → Karma comes with hooves in this zany creature feature, a monster mash in the Jurassic Park vein that also doubles as a piercing satire on the callousness of the wealthy. Like The Menu and Saltburn, its targets are the sort of venal one-percenters who, when faced with a mythical beast like the fabled unicorn, instantly contemplate the best way to exploit it. The comeuppance they get in return is the least they deserve in a fantasy that finds lots of ways for its titular equine to be murderously and malevolently horny. The film’s lone “good” characters are an estranged father and daughter (Ant-Man’s Paul Rudd and…

▶ RELEASED 12 MAY 1977 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director Ferdinando Baldi ▶ Cast Arthur Kennedy, John Richardson, Caroline Laurence BLU-RAY DEBUT In this entertainingly melodramatic Italian film, three couples, an aunt and the sailors steering their yacht are gradually bumped off on an island trip by person or persons unknown. It’s a giallo with an identity crisis. Gruesome shocks nudge it into horror territory. A wife’s psychic pronouncements prime us to expect the supernatural, and soon a dead man – or his possessing spirit – is the prime suspect. And it opens as soapy sexploitation, as we observe a string of adulterous couplings. Those experienced with this genre will probably guess the killer’s identity early on (thanks to their use of a familiar trick). Implausible backstory is crudely deployed.…

▶ RELEASED 28 APRIL 2025 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD ▶ Director Scott Chambers ▶ Cast Martin Portlock, Megan Placito, Kit Green, Peter DeSouza-Feighoney → The third film in the Twisted Childhood Universe improves on Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood And Honey and its sequel – but that’s not saying much. It’s young Michael Darling’s birthday and he’s got a new bike. On a ride in the woods, however, he’s abducted by Peter Pan (Martin Portlock), a circus clown who wants to take the boy to “Neverland”. With the family falling apart, Michael’s sister Wendy (Megan Placito) sets out to find Peter and bring her brother back. The original Peter Pan story is a more natural fit for a horror adaptation than Pooh and his pals. There’s an inherent creepiness to that tale which Neverland…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1994 | 15 | Blu-ray → Forbidden Zone helmer Richard Elfman brings a gonzo energy and a pinch of Joe Dante to this ’90s horror comedy. Three geeky kids tangle with neighbourhood hoodlums. Shot dead, they’re resurrected by a friendly voodoo sorcerer and then unleashed upon the streets as shrivel-headed spirits of vengeance. It’s an outrageous premise and Elfman fully commits, creating something so charmingly daft and bonkers you can only applaud his gall. + Extras Vintage Making Of, trailer.…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 1987 | 15 | Blu-ray ▶ Director David DeCoteau ▶ Cast Linnea Quigley, Ken Abraham, Michael Aranda, Richard S Hawkins → The pennies were pinched so hard they must have been the thickness of foil in this emission from the Empire Pictures stable, which conveys a post-apocalyptic future by sticking its characters inside for almost the entire duration. Sheltering from acid rain six years after a nuclear war, five deserters stumble upon an abandoned facility formerly home to a genetic experiment. Soon they’re being picked off by a slimy HR Giger-esque beast. The old-school effects are the principal reason to watch. Besides the rubbery creature suit, we’re treated to a creepy mutant baby and a dog-sized rat – with cast holding the latter to their throats à…

▶ RELEASED 29 APRIL 352 pages | Paperback/ebook ▶ Author Jenna Satterthwaite ▶ Publisher Verve Books → This thought-provoking mystery thriller is the latest addition to the small but growing subgenre of reality TV-inspired sci-fi. Its narrator is Julia, a contestant on a smash-hit show that bears an uncanny resemblance to The Bachelor. She’s different to the other women looking to win their happily ever afters – she’s a synthetic person purpose-built to attract too-good-to-be-true singleton Josh. Chapters alternate between the past and present as debut author Jenna Satterthwaite skilfully interweaves Julia and Josh’s very public courtship with the aftermath of his subsequent disappearance. Is she guilty of his murder, or – in a world mistrustful of Synths – simply the most convenient suspect? Made For You isn’t always subtle,…

▶ RELEASED 29 APRIL 400 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Chuck Wendig ▶ Publisher Del Rey → You’ve probably seen the stories online. People stumble across staircases in the middle of nowhere – just sitting there, not leading anywhere. The creepypasta has it that anyone who climbs such staircases will never be heard from again. Unfortunately for the five teens in Wendig’s new horror novel, there was no Reddit to warn them back in 1998. One drunken night, Matty dares his friends to climb a staircase in the woods near their small town. When they refuse, he does it himself. And, sure enough, he vanishes. Fast forward twentyish years, and the friends he left behind – super-smart Lauren, nervous Owen, even-tempered Hamish and spiky Nick – find themselves drawn to…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 288 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author Gregory Maguire ▶ Publisher Headline Publishing → For those who have only experienced the Wicked story – Elphaba’s in particular – via being fans of the stage musical or the successful film, let this be a buyer beware moment. Not because Gregory Maguire’s original novels are ever bad per se, just very different. Less “Defying Gravity”, more defying expectations. It’s not surprising that another book in the author’s Oz series (which launched in 1995 and has since expanded to four in total, not including this one) has arrived, given the renewed interest. But if you don’t care for prequels, Elphie may not do all that much to change your mind. Turning the clock back to Elphaba’s toddler days through her…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! 400 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook ▶ Author ES Drake ▶ Publisher Zaffre → In humorous fantasies, the afterlife is invariably a banal, bureaucratic and rule-governed place, and Acts Of Cupidity does little to buck the trend. At least the main characters this time are a little different; not angels, demons or ghosts, but Cupids. Yes, they have wings and arrows. No, they don’t have outsized nappies. They’re the formerly living, repurposed as agents of love, tasked with making sure the right love matches come about. But when recently deceased new recruit (and former journalist) Nikita is assigned former cop Erron and his partner Casey, an 18th century doctor, as her mentors, her training is cut short when prospective lovers keep dying. ES Drake’s debut novel is a…

▶ RELEASED 24 APRIL 312 pages | Hardback ▶ Author Graham E Hancock ▶ Publisher Buster Books • This deluxe hardback tells the story of the lucrative Star Wars/Lego team-up that started with 1999’s The Phantom Menace. • No brick is left unturned as it explores the partnership’s origins, the evolution of the kits, and the various video game and TV spin-offs. • The stunning artwork includes behind-the-scenes photography, concept art and fun oddities, such as an Emperor Palpatine minifig in a Christmas jumper. • Beyond the trivia, it’s a celebration of the creativity required to reimagine Star Wars in plastic bricks. • Interviewees often have memorable job titles, including several “Design Masters” and a “Keeper of the Holocron”!…

▶ RELEASED OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher DC Comics ▶ Writer Al Ewing ▶ Artist Steve Lieber ISSUES 1-4 James Gunn’s forthcoming Superman movie is introducing a bunch of less well-known characters from the DC Universe, including Rex Mason, a shape-changer also known as Metamorpho (who’ll be played by Barry scene-stealer Anthony Carrigan). He’s been a low-level Justice League member for decades, and DC’s latest revival joyously taps into his fab and groovy ’60s roots. Al Ewing knows that when your hero’s superpower is being able to mimic any element with his body, it isn’t the time for gritty realism. Instead, this is an unashamedly broad comedy, as Rex tries to balance his tangled love life with the fact that a sinister organisation called CYCLOPS is trying to kill him. The opening…

▶ RELEASED Volumes One And Two OUT NOW! ▶ Publisher Bear Alley Books ▶ Writer Tom Tully ▶ Artists Eric Bradbury, Bill Lacey COLLECTIONS The idea of a giant robot ape becoming sentient was impressively forward-thinking when “Mytek The Mighty” appeared in boys’ weekly Valiant in 1964. Tom Tully packs each two-and-a-half-page episode with bombastic scenes of battling mechanical monsters. This attracted criticism at the time for the violence. But not for the dubious attitude to race, apparent from page one with tribesmen the Akari accused of “senseless savagery” by Professor Arnold Boyce. Like square-jawed hero Dirk Mason, Mytek’s creator conforms to more positive stereotypes – unlike the opening storyline’s villain, fiendish dwarf Gogra. In this drawn-out tale (taking up all of volume one) Gogra, Boyce’s erstwhile assistant, hijacks Mytek…