Philip Pullman’s classic novels finally get the treatment they deserve

THE
WORLD’S

NO.1
SCI-FI, FANTASY
AND HORROR
320 MAGAZINE

PLUS!
WATCHMEN

THE WAR OF
THE WORLDS
THE
MANDALORIAN

Ca vi ll st ar s in th e m us t- se e fa nt as y se ri es
Henry
PLUS! FROZEN 2 STAR WARS DOCTOR WHO A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET CONAN
HAMMER HORROR GREEN LANTERN HARLEY QUINN FOR ALL MANKIND CLANGERS!
 CONTENTS
SUBSCRIBE
NOW & SAV3E0!

Contents
e
Head to pag
for deta il s

Red Alert
32
14 Frozen 2
18 For All Mankind
20 Harley Quinn
22 Conan: Serpent War
26 Doctor Who’s Sil
29 Green Lantern

Features
32 The Witcher
40 His Dark Materials
46 Watchmen
50 The Mandalorian
54 Anthony Daniels
58 War Of The Worlds
64 Ingrid Pitt
68 A Nightmare On
Elm Street
74 Paloma Faith
76 Clangers

Reviews
84 Terminator:
Dark Fate
86 Doctor Sleep
90 Watchmen
92 Spider-Man: Far
From Home
100 The Pursuit Of
William Abbey
108 Batman: Curse Of
The White Knight
110 Concrete Genie
GETTY (2)

4 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019 40 50

 CONTENTS

There’s four
letters in my
name, Rod...

Captain’s Log

46

Honestly, you spend all summer waiting for a

blockbuster series to come along and then four – or
more – turn up at once. We can barely move for them
now, and it shows no signs of slowing down over the
next couple of months. Which is brilliant! And that’s
before we’ve even looked at the films being released
in the run-up to Christmas. So we’ve redecorated
slightly to allow more space for as much feature
content as we possibly can.
The Witcher, His Dark Materials, Watchmen, Harley
Quinn, The Mandalorian, they’re all here – we’re
the world’s number one sci-fi, fantasy and horror
64 magazine for a reason, after all. We’ve even got a long-
76 delayed on-set feature for The War Of The Worlds. No,
really, it’s finally landing on BBC One this month. And
just like I said before, you wait around long enough
– there’s another version of the classic tale about to

58 launch globally. You can never have enough Tripods.

Unless you’re the BBC in the late ’80s, that is.
We’ve still got a healthy dose of nostalgia, though
– including a previously unpublished interview with
Ingrid Pitt. True story – I once spent my very last £5
on a signed photo of Ingrid and had to walk home.
Goodness knows where the picture is now.
We’ve also got an archive interview with Wes
Craven as we celebrate 35 years of A Nightmare On
Elm Street – the series that really got me into horror
movies and slasher flicks.
Then there’s the small matter of meeting a bona
fide sci-fi icon – my favourite protocol droid in the
whole galaxy. Speaking of blockbuster series...

68
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 5
 GET IN TOUCH!

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“What’s Clanger for ‘muthaf*ckers’?”

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We’ve had Gotham with a teenage Bruce Wayne and young Get in
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6 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

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 DECEMBER
2019
NEWS //// INTERVIEWS //// INSIGHT //// SPACE SLUGS! edited by Darren Scott

PRODUCER EXCLUSIVE

FROZEN 2
Disney just can’t let it go – but it’s
14

taken six years to reach screens

17
WOUNDS
20
HARLEY
26
SIL AND THE
Armie QUINN DEVIL SEEDS
Hammer’s Look out Mr J, OF ARODOR
opening up in Harley’s got her The Sixth
the new Netflix very own adult Doctor’s nemesis is
horror movie. animated series! on trial for his life!

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 9

 HARRY CHRISTMAS
Build that festive anticipation to breaking point
with this Funko Harry Potter Pocket Pop!
Advent Calendar (say it out loud and savour
those exploding consonants). Harry, Ron,
Hermione and the rest of the Hogwarts massive
are hiding behind the doors, recreated as 24
ickle plastic figures. Count down to Christmas
with the knowledge this is JK Rowling’s
Wizarding World – we just live in it…
£39.99, popinabox.co.uk

GREY POWER
Bruce Banner’s trouser-tattering
alter-ego is immortalised in a
Marvel Legends Series 80th
Anniversary Exclusive Grey Hulk.
Standing a mighty 8.5 inches high
– plenty big enough to duff up
Ant-Man – this limited edition
articulated figure is authentically
grey, matching the gamma-
powered behemoth’s comic book
debut. He comes complete with a
crushed pipe accessory and a
removable torn shirt. Suave!
£33.99, hasbropulse.com

10 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 DISC WHIRL
Hold on to your fedoras! Terry Pratchett’s Vinyl Discworld
brings the late fantasy master’s universe to black, spinning
circularity for the first time. This lavish 15-LP set features BBC
Radio dramatisations of six Discworld tales – Mort, Wyrd
Sisters, Guards! Guards!, Eric, Small Gods and Night Watch
– plus bonus story Only You Can Save Mankind. Discworld
Companion author Stephen Briggs provides sleeve notes.
£179.99, amazon.co.uk

FEET FIRST
Get some Starkiller Base chic on your feet with
these high-top sneakers from Po-Zu Shoes.
Inspired by the aesthetics of galaxy-conquering
reprobates the First Order, these organic
cotton beauties will allow you to stamp on the
Resistance in style. They come complete with
a choice of black or white laces, depending on
which side of the Force you’re feeling that day.
£69, po-zu.com

TO SHELL AND BACK

Aspire to Tony Stark levels of
technological sophistication with
this Marvel Avengers: Endgame
Iron Man Mk 50 Robot. Control
your shiny new pal’s motors, lights
and sounds using a mobile device
and go on augmented reality
missions to build up an arsenal of
nanotech weaponry. Buy a load
and assemble your personal robot
army! Though you’ll need Tony
Stark’s wallet…
£289.99, amazon.co.uk

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 11

 A rare first edition of the original Harry Potter novel, with two typos, recently sold at auction for £46,000.

Rants & Raves

INSIDE THE SFX HIVE MIND

DARREN SCOTT
EDITOR AERIAL
RAVES
Joker was a masterpiece. ASSAULT
SCI-FI TV
I was completely blown away by it,
which I wasn’t expecting at all. ROUND UP
I’ve really been enjoying Creepshow
on Shudder – there’s some properly
creepy stories and it’s great fun. Body horror
RANTS king David
There are so many big new shows Cronenberg
and films coming that we can hardly adapting his
fit them all in the magazine! 2014 debut
novel Consumed
IAN BERRIMAN for Netflix.
DEPUTY EDITOR
RAVES
POTTER’S PICTURE PALACE Rogue One’s
Tony Gilroy
writing the pilot
Honoured to have met Here be dragons! Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire receives a of spin-off
Malcolm McDowell on the set of Truth sumptuous new illustrated edition from Bloomsbury, filled with over Cassian Andor
Seekers, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s 150 pieces of art by the insanely talented Jim Kay, now established and will direct
new Amazon TV show. as the premiere Potter artist after his breathtaking versions of The multiple
Drooling slightly at the prospect of Philosopher’s Stone, The Chamber Of Secrets and The Prisoner Of episodes.
Criterion’s 15-film Godzilla box set Azkaban. Now he’s reimagining the fourth book in JK Rowling’s Heather
(due 25 November). Graham joining
sorcerous series, bringing such fan favourites as Cedric Diggory, Fleur
Doctor Who discovery of the month: the CBS All
Delacour and Victor Krum to full-colour life for the first time. Look for Access
turns out that in Japan, “Mara” is slang
Hogwarts’ Triwizard Tournament to leap off the page as never before. adaptation of
for penis.
Stephen King
feelgood fave
JONATHAN COATES The Stand.
ART EDITOR The Walking
RAVES Dead lurches
That new Star Wars trailer. on – it’s been
Hello Palpatine, goodbye Threepio, sniff! renewed for an
Was great to see the puppets and sets eleventh season
from Aardman’s Early Man at The M in autumn 2020.
Shed in Bristol this month. Nice touch Tom Austen
having Harryhausen’s original T-Rex and and Sydney
Triceratops (1,000,000 Years BC) there Lemmon to
for comparison with Nick Park’s headline Marvel’s
occult series
goggle-eyed homage versions.
Helstrom. It’ll
Awe-inspiring stuff! also star
Elizabeth Marvel.
IAIN NOBLE What are the
PRODUCTION EDITOR odds?
RAVES Netflix to
Hmm, having just watched adapt Jeff
the latest trailer for The Rise Of Smith’s graphic
Skywalker, I have to admit my previous novel series
cynicism has dissolved. It actually looks Bone as an
pretty damn promising... animated
kids’ show.
RANTS
Years And
Frozen 2 will soon be upon us, Years’ Maxim
which means muggins here will be Baldry joining
frogmarched to the cinema by my niece The Lord Of
to see it with her. Send help! The Rings.
James Wan
NICK SETCHFIELD producing
EDITOR-AT-LARGE Gideon Falls,
RAVES an urban horror
Loved Joker. I’m not usually thriller based
one for grim comic book stuff but this on the Image
Comics title.
felt like Martin Scorsese plunged into
Lost In Space
a vat of toxic chemicals! season two set
Just picked up Ghostland by Edward to hit Netflix on
Parnell, a journey through the Christmas Eve.
horror-haunted landscape of Britain. All aboard
Looks just up my spooky moor. for Alpha
GETTY (1)

Great to see OHMSS at the BFI for its Centauri!

50th anniversary. Big-screen Bond’s best!

12 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 In Disney’s Zootropolis universe there’s a poster advertising Floatzen 2.

PRODUCER EXCLUSIVE

ICE TO
SEE YOU
Six years after Disney’s
Frozen conquered the
world, Elsa and Anna
return for the coolest
sequel of the year

LET. IT. GO. IF YOU’VE GOT KIDS

of 14 or under, chances are those
three words will be etched on your
cerebellum until the day you die.
If one song can encapsulate the success
of Disney’s 2013 megahit Frozen in an icy
nutshell, it’s “Let It Go”, the tune that “A sprinkle of
instantly became a karaoke standard as it salt and in the
shot to the top of every pre-teen’s playlist. oven you go,
The movie went on to shatter box office my friend.”
records as the biggest animated movie of all
time (a record it still holds), and also Never go
spawned Star Wars-scale levels of swimming
merchandise, as Elsa and Anna dresses became must-have after dropping
fashion accessories for under-10s. loads of acid.
So six years on, the question isn’t so much about why
Disney have made Frozen 2 – it’s more, why the hell has it
taken them six whole years to do it?
“Six years doesn’t seem like a long time to me!” laughs
producer Peter Del Vecho. “When the first movie came out
we were satisfied that it was all wrapped up nicely. We
knew it was good, but none of us anticipated the success it
would become – so we hadn’t thought about even the idea
of doing a sequel. But different groups of people kept asking
questions like, ‘Why does Elsa have her powers?’ or ‘What’s
she meant to do with them?’ Slowly we realised we were
interested in asking those same questions.
“Frozen was happily ever after,” he continues. “We’re
asking if there’s any such thing as happily ever after…”
Three years have passed in Arendelle since Elsa became
queen and accidentally used her ice powers to plunge the
kingdom into a permanent winter. Having been estranged
from younger sister Anna for most of their lives, the pair are
now living together in the royal palace. And De Vecho says
their Bechdel Test-friendly relationship – widely praised in
the first movie – will again be at the forefront in Frozen 2.
“We always keep the focus on the two sisters,” he
explains, before adding that the dynamic between them has
shifted. “This is the first time they’ve really been together
and they don’t want to lose that. In the first movie Anna was

14 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

“When it’s
finished they’re
gonna call it
Stonehenge.” sort of fearless because she lost her sister and would do
anything to get her back. This time she has her sister back,
and she has her family of Kristoff, [talking snowman] Olaf
and [reindeer] Sven, so she’s worried that Elsa might take
the weight of the world on her shoulders. There’s a danger
she might lose Elsa again.”
While the first Frozen was very loosely based on Hans
Christian Andersen fairytale The Snow Queen, Frozen 2
doesn’t have such obvious source material to plunder.
Instead, the writers have dipped further into the
Scandinavian mythology they touched on in the original
– early footage introduces the Nokk, a water horse that
carries the true-of-heart across dangerous bodies of water
– while Elsa tries to get to grips with a mysterious calling
that might just hold the secret to her powers. We also know
that along the way the “family” will find their way to an
enchanted forest where new character Lt Destin Mattias
(voiced by This Is Us’s Sterling K Brown) has been trapped
for the last 30 years.
“He was alive when their father was a boy and knew their
father very well,” explains Del Vecho. “So when they do
meet him later in the story he can impart a different point of
view on events that happened in the past – that means our
characters are learning at the same time as our audience.”
But who will that audience be? Six years is an eternity
when you’re a kid, so it’s safe to say that the fans who were

What’s important is to find

a story that’s worthy of
telling and let the songs
evolve from that
enchanted by Frozen back in 2013 will have very different
tastes now. Will the franchise evolve, Harry Potter-style, to
embrace an older audience?
“I think overall the tone is very similar to Frozen,” says
Del Vecho. “But I think it’s important to realise that not only
are our characters older, but the audience who fell in love
with these characters are also older, and we had to reflect
that in some way. We wanted to make sure that our
audience can still relate to these characters, and that there’s
something new and changing.”
Then there’s the small matter of the songs, surely the
most likely cause of second album syndrome-like symptoms
given that “Let It Go”-shaped elephant in the room. At least
Oscar-winning songwriters Kristen Anderson-Lopez and
Robert Lopez have returned to try and recapture the
musical magic…
“You sort of have to put the success of the first film aside
when you’re making the second,” laughs Del Vecho. “So
what’s important is to find a story that’s worthy of telling
and let the songs evolve from that. Kristen and Bobby
usually look for the most emotional part [of the script]
and say that should be a song. They talk about it like they
were doing a Broadway show. So if Frozen 2 is the second
act of a musical, the songs go a little deeper, a little more
“Quit it, I’ll emotional, and touch on things that are different from the
end up frozen first act songs.” RE
to your cheek
again.” Frozen 2 is released in cinemas on 22 November.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 15

 Bruce Campbell was offered the role of Edgar in 1997’s Men In Black, but turned it down.
QUEENS OF
OUTER SPACE
Set the controls to drag!
Escape From Planet Trash is
the second in a trilogy of
alternative Christmas shows by
Sink The Pink, best known for
their acclaimed LGBTQ club
nights. Reuniting the team
behind last year’s How To
Catch A Krampus, it’s a fond
high-camp homage to the
glorious SF B-movies of the
past, promising shocking
spectacle and a suitably
cosmic live score. Catch it
at the Pleasance Theatre,
London from 19 November
– 22 December.
sinkthepink.co.uk
UNKNOWN PLEASURES
Long ago erased from reality by
short-sighted dopes at the BBC,
lost 1965 Doctor Who adventure
“Mission To The Unknown” has
been recreated by a team of
students, graduates and staff
at the University of Central
Lancashire. Now available to view
on YouTube, it’s a remarkably
faithful black-and-white
reenactment, brought to the
screen using authentic ’60s TV
methods – and the voice of
modern Dalek man Nick Briggs as
the tyrannical pepperpots.
https://tinyurl.com/yxun5k4j
LIVING DEAD
Fancy immersing yourself in
the unforgiving wasteland of
post-apocalyptic New Orleans,
battling not only zombiefied
nasties but the ever-present
perils of violence, disease and
famine? You do, you maniac?
Well, your ill-advised dream
can come true in The Walking
Dead: Saints And Sinners, a
VR gaming experience that
plunges you neck-deep into
the blood and filth. This new
release from Skydance
Interactive launches 23
January. Are you sure you
wouldn’t prefer a nice long
weekend in Lyme Regis?
vrwalkingdead.com
16 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
AFTERLIFE
CELEBRATING ICONIC
SCI-FI STARS
156
BRUCE
CAMPBELL
Ash Williams in Evil Dead
THEN
NOW
Bruce Campbell is a man who could
legitimately vie for the record for
most on-screen kills, having played
the square-jawed, slightly unhinged
deadite-slashing machine Ash
Williams since 1978 in the Evil Dead
films and Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series.
Not to mention offing a few terrorists
as Sam Axe in Burn Notice (2007-
2013). These days he’s on the hunt for
other extraordinary characters and
records as the host of Ripley’s Believe
It Or Not!, when he’s not at his
lavender farm…
Would you like to play the role again?
No, I’m done with Ash. I’ve done
everything that I know how to do. And
it’s okay to let those characters go,
because when it’s time to get the
walker out, and the cane, forget it! Get
out before that happens, not after.
Any particularly memorable deaths
for you?
No – just putting my head up a
cadaver’s butt was… very challenging.
What would it say on Ash’s
gravestone?
You’ll have to talk to Sam Raimi,
who created the character. I only care
about my gravestone!
Well, he’s not dead yet as we left him
in a post-apocalyptic world. What do
you think he’d be up to?
Saving the world, in the future. Then
he’s fulfilled the prophecy of defeating
evil in the past, present and future.
And then you kill him, that’s the comic
book way. Then you pass the mantle
to some hot chick!
 In 2007, Armie almost played Batman in a Justice League film that got cancelled.

FIVE MINUTES WITH...

ARMIE
HAMMER
The American star unpacks his latest
film, Netflix’s horror Wounds
Portrait by Matt McClain

DIRECTOR DRIVEN
Babak Anvari is the director of Wounds. He’s
Iranian but he’s London-based. He won a BAFTA for
his first film, Under The Shadow. It was an amazing
movie set in the Cultural Revolution in Tehran – a
really good horror movie. This is his second film;
Dakota Johnson and I shot it in the beginning of 2018,
down in New Orleans.

SHELL TO PAY
I play Will, who’s a bartender and is sort of in
a dead-end job. He’s a vacuous shell of a man who
has given up on life. For all intents and purposes, he
is an empty vessel. The thing about an empty vessel,
allegorically speaking, is that it’s very easy to get filled
up by things out of your control.

GETTING REAL
I would say it’s less surreal than Sorry To Bother
You, which I did last year. That movie was magical
surrealism. This was just… I think the best word for
it is eerie.

MAIN MAN
I don’t get asked very often to play characters. More
often than not I get asked to play the straight guy –
you’re the charming one, that kind of stuff. As an actor,
you really get to relish playing a character that’s so
different from yourself; getting to play a role where
MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST VIA GETTY IMAGES

you get to be a little off-kilter is a lot of fun.

2018 NBCUNIVERSAL MEDIA, LLC

INDIE KING
I’m just following the really good filmmakers and
really good content, and it seems like that’s where a lot
of people are migrating to. A lot of great content being
made now is for television, like Netflix, or in
independent movies, whereas a lot of the studios are
all involved making just one or two giant tentpole
movies a year. JM

Wounds is streaming on Netflix now.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 17

 As well as writing over 50 TV episodes of Star Trek, Moore co-wrote two Star Trek movies, Generations and First Contact.
“Due to budget
cuts we’ll have
to share the
clipboard.”
WRITER EXCLUSIVE
ONE GIANT LEAP
Ronald D Moore on Apple TV+’s For All Mankind
RONALD D MOORE’S NO STRANGER
to space. The screenwriter is well-
known for his work on a variety of Star
Trek series, as well as Battlestar Galactica, but
his latest series is one of the keystones of new
streaming service Apple TV+. Called For All
Mankind it stars Joel Kinnaman as an astronaut
at the height of the space race in the ‘60s.
“The premise starts with the revelation that
the Russians beat the United States to the
moon in 1969,” says Moore. “This feat by the
Russians is a complete shock to the world.
People are expecting the United States to win
the space race. Neil Armstrong is getting ready
to go to the moon, Apollo 11 is in the news – but
suddenly the Russians manage to land their
spacecraft on the moon’s surface. From that
moment, we’re in an alternate history.”
Audiences watching the action unfold can
expect a visual feast when it comes to attention
to detail. “We’ve recreated some iconic pieces
of space history, including the NASA mission
control room,” explains Moore. “It’s such an
exact replica that the ceiling tiles are the same
size and colour as the ceiling tiles in the real
room. Our production designer, Dan Bishop,
takes this stuff very seriously. The consoles in
mission control are exact replicas of the actual
consoles. If you took a meander through the
binders sitting on the consoles, you’d see they
are filled with real flight plans and notes.
18 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
“It’s not just about Mission Control,”
continues Moore. “We paid extreme attention
to detail on the spacecraft in the show, too.
We are taking our time to really try to recreate
the way the astronauts live and work. It’s
interesting, because this is a science fiction
idea. It’s an alternate history. It’s an alternative
timeline. However, everything else in the show
is played in a very real key. We try to make
everything else very grounded. There are no
aliens coming down. We’re not going to feature
the time vortex. Everything that happens in the
show is grounded in reality.”
In order to create For All Mankind’s detailed
level of realism, the show employed a number
of consultants and researchers from NASA
and beyond. “Garrett Reisman is one of the
consultants that I want to mention,” says
Moore. “Garrett is a former NASA astronaut
who flew to the International Space Station
twice. I’ve known him for many years and he
had a cameo on Battlestar Galactica because
he was a big fan of the show. When he was on
the Space Station, he used to watch Battlestar
on his laptop. I was always tickled by the idea
that there was somebody watching my fake
space while the real space was right outside
his window.” AT
For All Mankind is streaming on Apple TV+
now, with episodes debuting to late December.
MATTHEW
NEW AUTHOR
WARD
MEET THE FORMER GAMES
DESIGNER BEHIND EPIC
FANTASY LEGACY OF ASH
Tell us about your protagonists
– what’s their story?
Everyone in Legacy of Ash is dealing
with the consequences set in motion
by the previous generation. They have
to choose whether to maintain
destructive cycles, or risk everything
by standing up for what they believe.
Is the Tressian Republic comparable
to a real-life Earth civilisation?
I used to think of it as a cynical
amalgam drawn from across British
history. These days, I’m not so sure
about the “cynical” part. Pride does
wonderful and terrible things.
You worked for Games Workshop for
many years. How transferrable are
those game designer skills?
At the time I was there, hugely, as
the role was as much IP development
as straight-up games development. But
you’ve got to be wary. Life doesn’t
break down as cleanly as a wargame,
and narrative requires more detail.
Did you do much research?
The joy of fantasy is you only have
to do as much research as you want to.
Most of mine involved
dull things like
distances covered by
marching troops, so
not terribly exciting!
What’s the secret of
writing a good battle
scene?
Concision. Beyond
that? Focusing on the
characters. If the
battle’s just a battle,
it’s easy to lose the
emotional ties. Armed
conflict is a wonderful catalyst for
heroes and villains – even if they’ve
PHOTO NOTTINGHAM
nothing more at stake than victory,
they’ll never be the same again. IB
A signed Special Edition hardback of
Legacy Of Ash is out on 7 November.
A regular paperback will follow in April.
 Diedrich Bader first voiced Batman in the animated series Batman: Brave And The Bold.
SHOWRUNNER EXCLUSIVE
TAINTED LOVE
Harley Quinn finally gets her own
animated series made for grown-ups
SINCE HARLEY QUINN WAS CREATED BACK
in 1992 by Paul Dini and Bruce Timm as an original
character for the kid-friendly Batman: The
Animated Series, some fans have been pining for an
adaptation of the supervillain that gives her permission
to truly let loose. Joker’s soulmate in all things chaos and
destruction has often been tempered in subsequent
animated series, or sidelined as a support player in
live-action projects. But DC Universe’s new animated
comedy, Harley Quinn, aims to change all that, beating the
upcoming 2020 theatrical release Birds Of Prey (with
Margot Robbie reprising the Quinn role) to the punch by
showcasing the beloved character in all her 18-rated glory.
Created by executive producers Justin Halpern and
Patrick Schumacker (Powerless), Harley Quinn has Kaley
Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory) voicing Gotham City’s
notorious criminal, with Alan Tudyk playing Quinn’s former
(in this series, that is) puddin’, the Joker, and Diedrich
Bader as their nemesis, Batman.
While it’s positioned by Warner Bros Animation as the
first adult animated comedy set
in the world of superheroes and
supervillains, Schumacker says, Harley’s up against
it’s arguably even more
important that the series is
villains who are worse
entirely framed around Quinn’s than her. She’s a killer
perspective of the world. The
series presents her as a single
but they deserve it!
woman in the city,
contemplating how to make it, and everyone in it, her bitch.
“Gotham is gonna be a lot brighter and more Technicolor
because this is through her eyes,” he explains. “And the way
that we portray the heroes – which I think are ordinarily
lionised in the films – we have a little fun at their expense
because this is from Harley’s POV. So Batman is a real
buzzkill. Just a wet blanket,” he laughs.
Harley is more focused on her allies in villainy, including
Lake Bell’s Poison Ivy and Sanaa Lathan’s Catwoman, and
navigating the patriarchy of the familiar rogue’s gallery of
Gotham baddies. Plus, she’s also shaking off the residual
issues inherent in her unhealthy relationship with the
Joker. In choosing to separate the iconic duo, Halpern says,
“The idea was that we’ve all been in relationships with
someone that we’ve felt wasn’t right for us, all the way
to someone that was toxic for us. How you extricate
yourself from that is really what this show’s about. How do
you get out of that kind of relationship, and then figure out,
‘What am I gonna do now that I’m out of it? What do I
want? I’ve been living somebody else’s life for a really long
20 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
time.’ That is
something we really
wanted to tackle, and we Nothing beats
didn’t want to shy away a few pull-
from it.” ups before
In finding the right tone, breakfast.
Halpern says they looked to the show
the character originated in, Batman: The Animated Series,
for inspiration. “One of the things that we wanted to take
from it, even though the show is so different, is that it was
very much grounded in real emotion. So even though our
show will get crazy and insane things will happen, and
characters will say things they haven’t said before, we did
really want it to be this story about these two friends,
Poison Ivy and Harley. That’s one of the things about the
performances that’s so great is these [actors] came in and
got that right away, and just started to ground the
performances from the first line.”
But that doesn’t mean Ms Quinn isn’t going to earn a lot
of gasps for her actions in this series. Halpern warns,
gleefully, “I think she can get
away with a hell of a lot in the
show. The nice thing is that
most of the time she’s going up
against other villains who are
worse than her, so I think we
can root for her. She is a killer
but generally I think we’ve built
it so that those dying at her
hands all deserve it. Clearly!” he laughs.
As newbies to the world of animation, Halpern and
Schumacker both give a lot of credit to their voice cast for
introducing them to the joys of the medium. Well-versed in
the limitations of live-action production, they found the
voice sessions to be beyond freeing. Halpern says, “We had
all these gifted actors, and what we generally did was say,
‘All right, here’s the line, but what would you guys say? How
would you embody the character?’ It allowed us to have a
lot more improvisation than normal. You don’t get that
opportunity in live action.”
If audiences embrace the series, could that open the door
to other DC characters getting folded into the mix, in
crossovers? Schumacker grins at the idea and says, “The
idea was: ‘Here’s the whole sandbox. You guys play in it.’
There hasn’t been a plan in place yet for a shared universe.
But who’s to say? I’d be open to it, for sure.” TB
Harley Quinn premieres on DC Universe on 29 November.
A UK release is TBC.
It was the only
Halloween
costume the
shop had left.

“I really must “It’s not envy,

get my teeth I’m just drawn
whitened as well that way.”
as my skin.”

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 21

 Marvel is reprinting Supernatural Thrillers #3’s adaptation of “Valley Of The Worm”, which gives greater context to Serpent War.

WRITER EXCLUSIVE

SLITHERING NEWS
WARP

THROUGH THE
HIGH-SPEED
INFORMATION

Thwip! Disney
and Sony reach

CENTURIES
deal on Spider-
Man – Tom
Holland’s web-
slinger will
appear in two
more MCU joints,
including a third
solo movie.
Robert E Howard’s Zoe Kravitz to
flex her claws as
barbarian crosses Catwoman in
Matt Reeves’
chronal paths with Batman.
David
Solomon Kane and Duchovny joining
the cast of
Dark Agnes in Blumhouse’s The
Conan: Serpent War Craft remake.
Rock on! Taika
Waititi will
reprise the role
of Korg in Thor:
Love And
Thunder.
Iron Fist’s
Jessica Henwick
in the frame for
The Matrix 4
alongside Neil
Patrick Harris.
John Krasinski
teaming with
Fighting off Ryan Reynolds
on fantasy
snakes is comedy
a great ab Imaginary
workout. Friends.
Shriek and
Carnage
AFTER REINTRODUCING CONAN, MARVEL Moon Knight is also embroiled in what unfolds after rumoured to
are teaming up the Cimmerian barbarian with two Elder God the Wyrm forms an unholy pact with snake god, tangle with Tom
Hardy’s voice
more of Robert E Howard’s protagonists, Solomon Set. “Like Set, Khonshu, the moon god, is crucial to Serpent choices in
Kane and Dark Agnes, in a new mini-series. Written by Jim War, and through him Moon Knight is also pulled into the Venom 2.
Zub, and drawn by Scot Eaton and Stephen Segovia, Serpent fray,” teases Zub. “The fact that Set is also a major player in Dario Argento
to helm Euro-
War takes a different approach to the recent Avengers: No the Hyborian Age makes it a nice bridge between each time flavoured horror
Road Home and Savage Avengers, in which Conan himself and place. These gods and elder beings aren’t bound by series Longinus.
journeyed to the present-day Marvel Universe. time the way we are, so they can battle each other between Lady Gaga
rumoured for the
“In this case, Conan stays put in the Hyborian Age and the realities while our warriors struggle to fight back.” SJ
role of Audrey in
other characters come to him,” explains Zub, who tells the remake of Little
four-parter from the perspective of another of Howard’s Conan: Serpent War #1 is out on 9 December. Shop Of Horrors.
creations. “James Allison is quite a unique piece of Robert E
Howard’s pantheon of characters, as he’s an author living in
Texas in the 1930s, wasting away on his death bed and
DON’T QUOTE ME
having visions of the many lives he’s lived, the strange and
mythic journeys he’s taken and the shared soul between
“I HAVE GENUINELY NEVER
them. It’s amazing multi-dimensional/multi-timeline stuff, NEEDED TO LOOK AT THE
especially considering that most ’30s pulp writing was a lot INTERNET TO EXPLAIN TO ME
GETTY (1)

more straightforward. So that unique quality, and the many WHO I AM. I’M EXTREMELY
lives that James has lived, becomes the connective tissue for COMMITTED TO THAT IN MY
the characters who are brought together in Serpent War.” DAY-TO-DAY LIFE!”
We’re guessing Brie Larson doesn’t ego-Google.

22 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


THE KILLING FIELD
You know what’s not very scary? Grass. So In
The Tall Grass, a horror movie about some scary
grass, had its work cut out. And it’s a bit of a
mulch. This adaptation of Joe Hill and Stephen
King’s short story has now landed on Netflix.
At the centre is a strange and massive field,
which draws you in via the cries for help of
a frightened child. Once inside, you’re
immediately lost and
disorientated. The rows keep
shifting, time passes strangely,
and suddenly it feels like you’re
never going to get out… and
that’s when it gets weirder still.
As a story it works. As a film,
less so. In many ways Vincenzo
Natali, who made the excellent
labyrinthine sci-fi horror The
Cube, seemed like the perfect
director. But while the endless
rooms of The Cube were
mesmerising, all that grass is
pretty monotonous to look at
– and that’s when you can even
see what’s going on (the movie
is very dark). In The Tall Grass
feels exactly like what it is: a
clever, twisty short story that
works better on the page than
the screen. The grass isn’t
always greener, as they say.
THE WICKIE MEN
Aaarrrr, The Lighthouse be a
salty tale well worth your eyes,
says I! One auld sea dog drives a young pup to
madness inside a phallic tower, in the midst of
a blustery squall… No, I can’t keep this up.
Robert Eggers’s follow-up to The Witch is an
exceptional and very weird tale. Heading for a
January 2020 release, it’s a two-hander starring
Willem Dafoe, doing an accent you’ll want to
emulate for months to come, and Robert
Pattinson as two “wickies” (lighthouse
keepers) on a descent into hell. It’s funny, and
bizarre, and full of both farts and images you
can’t unsee. Don’t be put off by the fact that it’s
black and white and shot in an almost square
24 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
Opinion
aspect ratio, The Lighthouse will lead horror
conversations for the year ahead. And not just
In which fields, on International Talk Like A Pirate Day.
families and farts UNHAPPY FAMILIES
Keep an eye out for The Lodge, from Severin
are instruments Fiala and Veronika Franz, the directors who
made clever and seriously nasty 2014 horror
of torture Goodnight Mommy. Early screenings at the
London Film Festival have
generated good buzz, with
people likening it to Hereditary
for its family focus and sense of
creeping dread. Riley Keough
stars as a young woman with
a troubled past, left to care for
her step-kids in a remote lodge
for a pre-Christmas break after
their father flies off to the city
for a few days. It goes badly.
Early reviews suggest it’s a
slow-burner unlikely to appeal
to fans of jump scares and easy
answers, but if Fiala and Franz’s
previous work is anything to go
by it should prove rewarding
for those who like their horror
horribly uncomfortable in a
domestic setting. A UK release
date is yet to be set, but it’s due
in the States in February.
Grass: doesn’t
always have COMING UP, ROSE IS
relaxing effects. I’ve been banging on about
women in horror for years now,
but I get the sense that things
ch
Dreadful Thing To Wat are improving. The latest good news is that
Film4 is now available on streaming service Rose Glass, whose debut feature, psychological
All 4, and the first batch of movies includes horror Saint Maud, also debuted as part of the
some horror gems that you might have LFF, has won the £50,000 IWC Schaffhausen
missed. The service offers films for free, but
Filmmaker Bursary Award in association with
with ads, and for a limited time. At
the time of writing BFI. The award’s aim is to support up-and-
Prevenge, The Killing coming filmmakers. Saint Maud is about a
Of A Sacred Deer pious young nurse who’s obsessed with saving
and Thelma were all the soul of the cancer patient who’s her ward
available. Head over
to channel4.com/
(played by Jennifer Ehle). Danny Boyle has
channel/film4 for the likened it to Carrie, The Exorcist and Under The
latest treats. Skin. Again, there’s no UK release date yet, but
keep an eye out for it.
 Sil was due to return to Doctor Who in the abandoned 1986 story “Mission To Magnus”. It was later recorded on audio by Big Finish.

CAST AND DIRECTOR EXCLUSIVE

SOWING THE
SEEDS OF DOOM
A classic Doctor Who villain
returns in a brand new spin-off
movie... Marsh minnow, anyone?

BACK IN THE DAYS WHEN DOCTOR WHO

was off-air, fans wanted to watch more, so they
went out and made their own stories, but without
the Doctor. Instead, they obtained the rights to characters
and monsters, such as Sergeant Benton, Sontarans and the
Yeti, resulting in the likes of straight-to-video releases
Wartime, Shakedown and Downtime. Sarah Jane Smith and
the Brigadier even appeared in the latter.
With the series back in production in the 21st century,
creative fans in the TV business are still licensing classic
series creations and making new stories with them. The
latest independent drama is Sil And The Devil Seeds Of
Arodor, featuring the money-loving Mentor who faced the
Sixth Doctor and Peri twice in the 1980s.
Creator Philip Martin has written the tale, bringing back
Sil (Nabil Shaban) and his superior Lord Kiv (Christopher
Ryan), under the direction of Keith Barnfather.
“Keith Barnfather had previously recorded an interview
with me as part of his MythMakers series,” says Martin,
“and had recently spoken to Nabil Shaban, who played Sil. Sophie Aldred,
Keith contacted me with the idea of maybe creating a low aka Ace, also
budget film that starred Sil.” stars in the
“It was a big surprise to be asked to do it,” admits Shaban. new show.
“Keith said to me, ‘Do you fancy doing Sil again?’ and of
course I said yes. At first, I think he was thinking of just Sil as few sets and locations as possible, because we didn’t have
talking to the camera, but then they decided to make a a huge amount of money. With drama, the most important
proper drama. things are plot and the actors, and you need them to be
“I didn’t think Sil chatting to the camera would be good. If you’ve got those two elements, that’s a great start.
interesting enough to hold the attention of viewers. I was The most important thing is story.”
relieved it was a proper story Barnfather is no stranger to
involving other actors as making Doctor Who-based
additional characters.” Writing for Sil has always drama, explaining: “I’ve made
After being approached,
Martin says: “I said I was
been a joy. To have him other dramas Earth-based as
they’re relatively ‘easy’ to do,
interested and would think as a central character was and we’ve done a drama set in
about it but, given cast and
location restrictions I didn’t a labour of love. space before with Mindgame
and Mindgame Trilogy.
make much progress until I “When we came up with
hit on the idea of having Sil put on trial for his life after the idea for Sil And The Devil Seeds Of Arodor, as Philip and
damaging the health of Eurozone citizens through I worked closely together on the overall framework, we
importing Devil Seeds from the planet Arodor. His trial worked out we could do something on a limited budget. I
would take place on a moon base in the year 2386.” was faced with the inevitable prospect of having to do it in
Shaban continues: “It was written with the idea of using the studio – you can’t create an alien environment. Initially

26 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


Mike from The
Young Ones
has an eclectic
fan club.
we thought about a space station, but we decided on a
moonbase as we thought that would be physically more
interesting to illustrate and easier, in a way, to design.”
Sil’s determination to make a quick buck cost him in his
Doctor Who TV appearances, and past sins catch up with
him in his latest outing.
“Ok, on take Martin explains: “The trial of Sil is the action of the film
five we’ll lose and the crux of the drama as Sil tries to wriggle out of
the Let It Go paying for his mistakes by forfeiting his life. Writing for Sil
singalong.” has always been a joy, and to have him as a central character
on screen was a labour of love.”
The production also features some impressive effects,
created on a tight budget.
“On low-budget productions it’s always a struggle to
make things look believable,” says Barnfather. “But Nick
Briggs put me on to Chris Thompson, who does a lot of
work for Big Finish and Gerry Anderson Productions, and
he has been incredible. The effects he’s done for us, with
the money we could afford to pay him, look absolutely
“I’d look even
sexier with
a tongue
piercing.”
In space, no
one can see
where the hell
they’re going.
stupendous – mainly the exterior views of the moonbase,
and also some shots we needed treated and changed, and
little bits added.
“Phil Newman’s work as costume and overall set designer
was also crucial to the success of the production. I can’t tell
you how impressed I’ve been with him.”
Shaban concludes: “When ‘Vengeance On Varos’ was
written, it was at the start of Thatcherism and the rise of the
monetarists, the selfish, who believe greed is good. Philip
Martin was extrapolating from what was already on the
horizon and in that 30 year interval, it’s just become worse
and worse. Sil is the perfect icon for today – he really
represents the modern human world... and he’s an alien.
I think people like Donald Trump and Boris Johnson have
learned from Sil!”
Martin agrees: “I think Sil is very relevant
today. I find it interesting, his philosophy of
‘why conquer worlds when you can gain TURN OVER FOR
control by buying them up?’ It’s significant AN EXCLUSIVE
that President Trump prefers economic COMIC PREVIEW!
sanctions to going to war – a strategy straight
out of Sil’s playbook!” KS
Sil And The Devil Seeds Of Arodor is available on DVD and
Blu-ray now.
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 27
28 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
 First seen in Olaf Stapledon’s 1937 novel Star Maker, a Dyson sphere is a mega-structure around a star that could fuel a space settlement.

© LUCASFILM/DISNEY
IN THE NEXT SFX
AUTHOR EXCLUSIVE

FINAL
FRONTIER
NK Jemisin journeys where no Green Lantern
has been before in new series Far Sector

AFTER WRAPPING UP which was connected but not

her Hugo Award-winning quite a Dyson sphere just yet.”

The Broken Earth trilogy,
author NK Jemisin is venturing
into the distant reaches of the DC
Universe, teaming up with artist
Jamal Campbell on Green Lantern
12-parter Far Sector for Gerard
STAR
Jemisin continues, “I’m a giant
Janelle Monae nerd so I modelled
her on Monae’s aesthetic at the
time.” She named the lead
character Sojourner “Jo” Mullein
after Sojourner Truth, the 19th

Way’s Young Animal imprint.
“Gerard told me he had an idea
for a story about a Green Lantern
who was based in a far sector of
space, and he wanted her to be
a black woman,” Jemisin tells Red
Alert. “He contacted me and the
world just spun into my head, and
the City Enduring became a thing.
I’d always enjoyed different
variations of the Dyson concept, so
I wanted it to be a Dyson swarm,
WARS
century African-American slavery
abolitionist. “Jo is from a typical
working class New York family,”
says Jemisin of the former soldier,
who joined the police force around
the time that Eric Garner died
after being arrested by the NYPD,
one of several incidents that led to
the creation of the Black Lives
Matter movement. “She became
THE RISE OF SKYWALKER
disillusioned with the cops and The biggest access, the biggest
decided that she wanted to try coverage, the biggest film
finding justice in a event of the year

ALL CONTENTS ARE LIABLE TO CHANGE, DEPENDENT ON OUR PATH TO THE DARK SIDE.
different way, and she
Green Lantern gets the opportunity
Jo battles to to do just that.” PLUS EXCLUSIVE ON-SET ACCESS!
protect the Insisting that Jo is
City Enduring. a sheriff only in the
sense that “she is by
herself”, Jemisin says
LOST IN SPACE
Danger! Space Family Robinson return
that Far Sector is not
really a Western in

DRACULA
space. “It’s more
cyberpunky than
anything else,” she
says. “City Enduring Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss raise
has 10 platforms, the dead
which each have a
different character,
and so far we’ve just
seen the most urban
of them, which is
THE EXPANSE
A new beginning for humanity beckons
basically Manhattan
on steroids.” SJ

Far Sector #1 is out SFX321 ON SALE 4 DECEMBER

13 November.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 29

 The perfect gift
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 THE WITCHER

32 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 THE WITCHER

FOLLOWING ON
FROM THE HUGELY
POPULAR BOOKS
AND VIDEOGAMES,

IS FINALLY BEING
BROUGHT TO TV. SFX
VISITS THE SET TO
FIND OUT IF IT’LL
BECOME THIS
YEAR’S MUST-SEE
FANTASY SHOW
WORDS: JAMES MOTTRAM

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 33

 THE WITCHER

Away from the set, showrunner Lauren unnamed setting for Sapkowski’s universe
Hissrich pitches up. A former writer on The where elves, dwarves, humans and other
West Wing, more recently she has worked on creatures co-exist. “It’s really the European
Marvel shows like Daredevil and The Defenders. Lord Of The Rings, in a sense,” says Julian
“The world of The Witcher is really unique in Parry, the show’s visual effects supervisor.
that it takes this world of fantasy, adventure, Sapkowski, unsurprisingly, has been dubbed
fights, monsters, romance and witches... and “the Polish Tolkien”.
yet Sapkowski thought it was really important “It’s about how comfortable or
to ground it in what was happening in the real uncomfortable people are with each other and
world,” she says. each other’s differences,” says Cavill, when
For the uninitiated, a Witcher is a beast- SFX sits down with him the following day
hunter – trained in deadly fighting skills and (arriving with his giant bear of a dog, Kal,
exposed to mutagens that grant them enhanced a black and white Akita). Cavill points out
abilities, including the use of magic. This there’s friction between the different races,
LOSE TO THE rarefied breed patrol The Continent, the particularly the “ostracised and
Hungarian town of Baj, some 70km from
Budapest, Henry Cavill is standing in a huge
dome-like cavern. Usually it’s a wine cellar;
today it’s been remodelled for one of the many
sets for The Witcher, the new fantasy show
from Netflix based on the hugely popular book
series by Andrzej Sapkowski. Cavill, famed for
playing Superman in the recent DC Comics
movies, takes the lead, as Geralt of Rivia.
Currently, the team is working on episode
seven – there are eight in total – amid what’s
been an arduous seven-month shoot. In the
middle of the room stands a giant well, with a
beam of light shooting out from underneath.
A cameraman follows Cavill, dressed in black
leathers, with a sword on his back and long
silver hair, as he prowls around the well.
“That’s lovely, Henry,” says a voice from the
gloom, as “cut” is called, and Cavill takes five.

“No one told

me I’d have
to deal with
giant spiders.”

Floating bacon
rolls: available
now at your
local Greggs.

34 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


misunderstood” witches. “And then you see
Geralt navigating his way through these
prejudices, and trying to heal them. And at the
same time, also being a weapon of fiery wrath.”
The actor is wary of giving away spoilers.
“How can I say this in code? He goes from a
particular belief – because that’s how he’s
managed to survive in the world so far – and
that belief is twisted and turned and evolves
into something else entirely separate.”
Likewise, Hissrich is keen to drop viewers into
the first episode unawares. “We try to make
sure that the character journeys in the first
episode are things that people can relate to; the
world should hopefully blow their minds.”
Hissrich eagerly notes that Cavill has been
“a dream to work with”. They met twice, and
on their second encounter, “I talked to him
about the Geralt that we wanted in the show.
He talked about how he would best portray
Geralt. We talked about white hair and contact
lenses and all of the practicalities of embodying
this character, which he does so well. And by
the end of that meeting I think we both knew it
was meant to be and we’ve never looked back.
He brings so much heart and soul.”
FAM ILY SHOW
But what about drawing in casual viewers,
those unaware of the books, comics or video
They fought
to the death
over the last of
the shower gel.
THE WITCHER
games? Can it break out? “I think The Witcher
tells a lot of really human stories,” says
Hissrich. “Yes there are monsters, and yes,
there will be a lot of blood – but there’s also
a family coming together. To me, that really
has been the theme of the first season: ‘What
makes a family? How does a family find each
other? Why are they meant to be together?’
People who may not think they are fantasy fans
will come and find that they are.”
British actress Freya Allan concurs. “Of
course it’s got brilliant fantastical elements
– monsters and magic. But there are a lot of
relatable topics within it: loss, wanting to have
a family, having been orphaned, wanting a
If you’re not telling
a good story, it doesn’t
really matter how
many heads you’ve
chopped off
child. Those are some of the big themes that
aren’t fantastical.” Allan plays Ciri, the
daughter of the King and Queen of Cintra, a
once-powerful kingdom, who will eventually
meet with Geralt and train to become a
powerful sorceress.
Hissrich makes no apologies for the fact that
The Witcher will be violent – but only if it
serves the story. “I think audiences are much
smarter than that now and if you’re not telling
a good story, it doesn’t really matter how many
heads you’ve chopped off. If it’s not a good
story, it’s not appealing. It’s more of a gut
“And now back
to the studio
for tomorrow’s
weather.”
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 35
 THE WITCHER
feeling and it really is making sure that
anything we do with violence makes sense and
propels one of our characters along.” So will we
see severed limbs? “Oh, there are limbs flying…
yes, there are!” she chuckles.
Of course, with the recent conclusion of
Game Of Thrones, Hissrich is all too aware that
The Witcher is going to be held up alongside
the HBO epic. “I think it will draw
comparisons, because they’re both huge
fantasy shows. I also think they’re very
different types of shows. I say that being a huge
fan of both of them… I think when the
comparison is made, everyone just wants this
show to be as successful as Game Of Thrones.
But when people come, they’ll see we’re taking
a different twist on fantasy.”
Tonally, she adds, the two shows are very
different. “There is a humour to the world of
The Witcher, there is a tongue-in-cheekiness.
The world doesn’t take itself too seriously. And
part of that is a reaction to Geralt, who is a very
serious character. He has a dry wit but he
works through the world in a morose place.”
Also, the showrunner promises “smaller
close-ended stories” within the overall arc.
“With Game Of Thrones you can’t just pop in
and out of episodes, and that’s part of the
brilliance of it.”
M O NSTE R M AY H EM
When it comes to the monsters that Geralt will
face on his journey, Parry reveals there will be
a number of the books’ signature creatures,
including a Striga (a woman transformed into
a monster via a curse), a Djinn (a powerful air
spirit), and most excitingly, the swamp-
dwelling Kikimore, described by Parry as an
“aquatic arachnid”. He’s thrilled with its
“Oh my,
grandma,
what big claws
you have.”
36 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
PC gamer Henry Cavill
on what turned him on
to The Witcher
Is it true you’re a big gamer?
Yes, I’m a big gamer. PC gamer in
particular. I played The Witcher 2
many years ago when it first came
out. I played The Witcher 3 a number
of times through. My gaming
interests probably came from my
father’s influence. He liked PCs.
When we were all kids, me and my
four brothers, we ended up with a
table in our dining room, and much
to my mother’s dismay, we turned it
into a gaming table. So we had four
or five PCs all linked up by local area
network. And that just became part
of our childhood.
Did your love of The Witcher games
inspire you to take on the show?
Any game I play, which I enjoy, I’m
Despite a like, “Could it make a good movie?
Could it make a TV show?” That’s
small fire, the just the business mind working. And
photo shoot also the creative mind. It’s fun to do
continued. this stuff. And it’s fun to play these
games and be able to actually play
them as close to real life as possible.
And so when this popped up, I said,
“Guys, I want to be a part of it.” And
here I am, so I’m a happy man.
What is it that you like about
playing Geralt?
What I like about the character is
that he’s a good guy, right?
Ultimately, deep down in his core,
he’s a white knight. But he’s also
capable of being incredibly cold and
doing what’s necessary. He isn’t just
the guy who does the right thing
all the time. He has made mistakes,
and his mistakes have sometimes
been bloody and brutal. He takes
a real-world view. He’s not a utopian
character at all, he is the best you
can get from a very, very harsh
world, and he’s incredible at
surviving in it.
 THE WITCHER

“He’s going
to do what
with the
pointy end?”

They love a
quick game
of poker
between takes.

Geralt isn’t just the guy who

does the right thing all the time.
His mistakes have sometimes
been bloody and brutal

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 37

 THE WITCHER

design. “As I’ve gone through life I’ve seen With several visual effects companies –
really weird, strange, sick things, and I thought, including London-based Framestore, who
‘How can I get that into this creature?’” worked on Avengers: Endgame – and around
But where does the tone of the show lie? Is it 350 employees working on the VFX, it’s
fantasy? Is it horror? “I definitely think it leans a monumental task that lies ahead. Cast
British actress Freya more towards horror,” says Parry. “We’re members and sets will be augmented, and then
Allan talks all things Ciri definitely taking the fantasy out. I can honestly
say we’re not fantastical. I mean, it’s fantastical
but in a grounded horror sense. For example, The show leans more
How did you connect with Ciri?
She’s not afraid to ask questions. She
with Striga, that’s one gnarly-looking thing.
That’s very unpleasant!” While the rapid-fire
towards horror than
won’t just accept things because
that’s how they are. She’s feisty. I can nature of television means there won’t be time fantasy. It is fantastical,
definitely be stubborn as well, and
she’s stubborn too! She’s a mixture.
for motion capture, Parry is using actors in
“monster” suits, and then enhancing them
but in a grounded
She likes to go and play with the
boys and get dirty and muddy, so
in post-production. horror sense
she’s a bit of a tomboy, but at the
same time I don’t think she wants
to be exactly like the boys. I think
there’s part of her that enjoys being
a princess and having some power
and the possibility of maybe being
a strong woman like Calanthe, her
grandmother. She’s got two sides.
She’s three-dimensional. She’s not
just a tomboy.

Does the show raise questions about

the current state of the world?
In The Witcher, something I’ve
noticed in my journey is there are
a lot of people seeking power and
that power is not necessarily always
because they’re evil or narcissistic.
It’s sometimes out of pure fear. And
I think there’s a lot of that today,
people seeking power and it won’t
necessarily make them happy. It’s out
of fear. In The Witcher, there’s a lot of
dominance as well. I think you could
see that.

Did any of the cast give you advice

coming into the show?
When I started, I had lots of crying,
which I hadn’t done that much of
before. MyAnna [Buring] gave me
some tips about listening to music,
so I’ve already got into doing that.
For really tough scenes, I have
a playlist of music from films that
have made me cry and that really
helps to get into those feelings. The
music from Testament Of Youth, and
then for the more dramatic scenes,
I listened to the music for Snow
White And The Huntsman.

“I really must
get this back
garden under
control.”

38 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 THE WITCHER

there are the armies. “We’ve got the Nilfgaard
armies, which can’t exist because there are
10,000-plus of them,” says Parry. “Same with
the Temerians and the Cintrans. The armies
physically can’t exist here on set.”
CAST L E CO N U ND R U M
While the show has largely been shot in
Hungary, there was one snag. “When we first
started exploring the idea of [shooting in]
castles, many of the castles in Hungary were
destroyed by the Turkish invasions. So they’re
ruins,” explains Andrew Laws, the show’s
production designer. It meant looking further
afield, in Austria, at Kreuzenstein Castle, and in
Poland, where two castles were used, including
Ogrodzieniec, a ruined 13th century fortress in
south-central Poland.
Intriguingly, the Canary Islands also doubled
for several of the show’s key locales, including
Brokilon Forest. “Each of the islands has
a completely different character to it,” explains
Laws. “So we had three different units
shooting at the same time on different islands.
And all in completely different environments.
You can go from a bleak volcanic cap to the
densest of tropical forest to the desert, all in
the course of just a three-, four-hour journey
on different islands. It allowed us to tell many
different stories.”
Needless to say, Hissrich is already mapping
out stories beyond the first season. “Oh hell,
yeah! Second season? I’ve done it for seven
seasons!” she laughs. “We don’t have a second
season yet – God willing we will – but right
now it’s just about ‘How do you set up stories
that really capture audiences for years at a
time?’ The worst thing we could do is put all of
our energies just into season one, and not be
thinking about where these characters can
grow to.” So everyone makes it to the end of the
first season? “Well, not all… I can’t promise you
that they’re all very much alive.”
The Witcher is on Netflix from 20 December.

How a Polish fur salesman took fantasy literature by storm

Back in 1985, Andrzej Sapkowski
was a travelling salesman who
specialised in furs. A former
student of economics, he also
had a passion for writing, so
much so that he decided to
enter a short story competition
in the Polish magazine
Fantastyka. “Wiedzmin”, as it
was called, didn’t even win first
prize. He wasn’t intending to
write a second, but after it
appeared in print he was
encouraged to go again.
After collecting his early
stories in two anthologies,
Sword Of Destiny (1992) and The
Last Wish (1993), Sapkowski
began to further the world of
The Witcher – as the title was
later translated as – with a series
of novels dubbed the Blood Of
Elves saga. Published between
1994 and 1999, these five books Lauren Hissrich met him, she
gradually turned Sapkowski into recalls that he was amenable to
a cult figure in Eastern Europe. bringing his stories to television,
It wasn’t long afterwards that “as long as he feels
software developer CD Projekt we are respecting
Red approached Sapkowski the tone and the
about turning his fantasy intent of the
universe into a videogame. books”.
Arriving in 2007 for PCs (and His most recent
later for consoles) The Witcher book, Season Of
was positively received, and it Storms, set
was enough to fully introduce between stories in
Sapkowski’s books to English- The Last Wish,
speaking audiences (The Last arrived in English
Wish was the first to be in 2018, while Dark
translated, that same year). Horse Comics also
Two hugely popular sequels, published a
The Witcher 2: Assassins Of spin-off comic
Kings (2011) and The Witcher 3: series. With the
Wild Hunt (2015), followed, Hissrich-produced
although Sapkowski has always show on the horizon, Sapkowski
had an ambivalent relationship can no doubt expect his star to
with the games. But when ascend to even greater heights.

It had always “Are you sure

been her this thing’s
dream to sell actually
egg timers. plugged in?”

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 39

 HIS DARK MATERIALS
GET YOUR DAEMON ON! HIS
WORDS: NICK SETCHFIELD AND ADAM TANSWELL
ANE TRANTER SMILES AS
she remembers the creative
process that brought the
multiverse-spanning His Dark
Materials trilogy to TV.
“We fried each other’s brains,”
says the producer, “and those of
everyone around us.”
Sat next to Tranter is Jack Thorne, the man
who adapted Philip Pullman’s novels for the
screen. “I’ve done my fair share of screaming,”
he admits.
Little wonder there were so many sizzling
cerebrums. His Dark Materials is a beast: a
beloved, award-winning epic that entwines
science, magic and religion as it ranges across
realities. Ambition is embedded in its very
words, as much a part of the mix as witches
and airships, parallel worlds and warrior bears.
Even the title pickpockets a line from Milton’s
Paradise Lost – a literary masterwork Pullman’s
fully prepared to ruck with.
It’s been adapted before, of course: the
National Theatre mounted a stage production
in the early ’00s, while Daniel Craig and Nicole
Kidman starred in 2007’s The Golden Compass,
a tepidly received take that killed a potential
big-screen franchise at birth.
“I like a challenge,” says Tranter, who was
instrumental in resurrecting Doctor Who
40 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
DARK MATERIALS HITS TV, EPIC AMBITION INTACT
during her time as controller of drama
commissioning at the BBC. (A collaboration
with New Line Cinema, His Dark Materials is
the first offering from production company Bad
Wolf, founded by Tranter and former Who
producer Julie Gardner – and yes, the company
name is a nod to the classic story arc of the
Eccleston era.)
“I thought it was time for the books to be
liberated in a space which could do them
justice,” says Tranter. “All of those different
adaptations have been brilliant in their
different ways, but with the real estate of
contemporary television being able to stretch
those books out and really be able to sound
every note that Philip Pullman sounded in the
novels, I just felt that it was time. And I was
They both
suffered from
bad backs.
very persistent and very tenacious, and very
naggy around New Line Cinema and Philip
Pullman to give me the rights to adapt it for
television. Eventually they just got really sick
of me and told me, ‘Fine, okay, go for it then.’
And we did.”
TH ORNE AG AIN
To script this initial eight-part series Bad Wolf
enlisted Thorne, no stranger to translating
cherished fantasy properties to other media
given his collaboration with JK Rowling on
stage play Harry Potter And The Cursed Child.
“I always describe it as doing a PhD,”
explains Thorne, who knew that loyalty to the
books was crucial. “The first thing you’ve got
to do is do a PhD on the author. That’s what
I tried to do with Harry Potter and that’s what
I’ve tried to do with His Dark Materials, to
know everything, and to have it all inside your
head. Then, when you’re starting doing the
adapting, you’ve got the novel with you, but
you’ve also got a conception of the world inside
you, and a truth, the truth that Philip’s trying to
tell. And when you try and translate it for
television, you’re constantly keeping that truth
in your head. What Jane said – sounding every
note. And that’s what we’ve tried to do, just try
and capture the important notes and tell them
to the best of our ability.
 HIS DARK MATERIALS

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 41

 HIS DARK MATERIALS
“I got it wrong an awful lot is the truth of
how we developed this story. We did 46 drafts
of episode one, which is a lot of drafts to do.
You do sometimes get lost in other stuff.
Everything that Philip builds is for a reason.
Xandria [Horton], who’s my script editor on
this show, wrote papers on all sorts of different
facets. It’s like, we need to know everything.
And if we can understand everything, we can
tell a really basic story.”
“Philip Pullman was our guide, really,” says
Tranter. “It’s a rollercoaster ride of a narrative.
His books are real page-turners, and we just
followed that pace.”
It’s the story of Lyra Belacqua (Dafne Keen),
a young orphan living in Jordan College,
Oxford, sheltered by the dusty world of
academia. Mischievous and prone to lying – a
trait that earns her the nickname Silvertongue
– she’s been placed there by her uncle, Lord
Asriel (James McAvoy).
“I didn’t really know about [the books],” says
Keen, whose breakthrough came as the
precociously lethal Laura in Logan. “I went
into my audition and I’d only been halfway
through the book, because I was like, ‘Oh, I’m
not going to get it anyway, so whatever.’ Then
I was called. They were like, ‘You got it.’ I was
like ‘Oh, right, we’ve got to read three books
now…’ They’re so fun. They’re so entertaining.
They’re so good. Philip’s amazing. I don’t know
where he gets these ideas from, honestly. Yeah,
I was a fan after I read the books.”
Lyra soon enters the orbit of the darkly
charismatic Marisa Coulter (Ruth Wilson),
who promises to teach her how to wield power
in this magic-steeped world. But when Lyra
42 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
“This is the
lamest street
party I’ve ever
been to.”
Moments later,
the monkey
was missing
a few digits.
goes in search of a missing friend, she discovers
a conspiracy involving stolen children, linked
to a mysterious substance named Dust.
Heading to the frozen wilderness in the North,
she teams with Texan aeronaut and adventurer
Lee Scoresby (Lin-Manuel Miranda), on a
quest that will challenge everything she knows.
“We have these incredible actors,” says
Thorne, of the show’s cast. “Incredible actors
that were prepared to test every single thing
that I wrote, and prepared to fight me on
different things in a really interesting way. I
shared an 11-hour plane ride with Ruth Wilson,
“Hey, aren’t
you that bloke
who writes
books?”
“Seriously,
why do you
want a photo
of this?”
Triple-history
lessons were
always a bit
of a drag.
in which we were sitting next to each other,
more or less, and I was literally tossing a laptop
over the seats so that she could read stuff and
give me notes, and then I would rewrite and
show her again. These guys took control of it,
and made the humanity of it, which Philip is so
full of, absolutely the centre of what we did.”
“The whole thing is about freedom,” says
McAvoy, “and Lord Asriel is all about attaining
that freedom for everyone on a grand, grand
scale. But he will sacrifice any love in his life
for that goal, for that purpose. And some little
girl that he keeps an eye on sometimes, he’ll
put that second.”
It’s a rollercoaster ride
of a narrative. His books
are page-turners and we
just followed that pace
Honouring one of Pullman’s most ingenious
imaginative flourishes, the characters are
accompanied by their personal daemons:
manifestations of their soul that take the form
of talking animals, voiced by such talent as
David Suchet and Helen McCrory.
“My daemon’s a snow leopard,” says McAvoy,
clearly delighted by the choice. “I’m completely
solitary, and I’m a predator. One of the really
cool things about this world is that when you’re
a child, before puberty, your demon is
changeable, and it can change into any shape,
depending on your mood, or just what you
desire, or what would help the situation. But
when you reach puberty, when you start to
 HIS DARK MATERIALS

RUTH WILSON
is Marisa Coulter

Mrs Coulter is described as the

mother of all evil and the cesspit
of moral filth. What do you like
about her?
I love how surprising she is and
how dangerous she is. She’s quite
impulsive, too. I love that side of her.
I really enjoy playing this character
because we’re digging deeper
into areas that aren’t necessarily
explained in the books. Philip
Pullman has given us licence to dig
deeper with Mrs Coulter, so the
audience gets to understand a bit
more as to why she is who she is and
why she does what she does. That’s
been really joyful, because Jack and
I have had so many conversations
about digging into the scenes and
the relationships of the characters.
We have been able to add layers to
Mrs Coulter.

The books have been called atheism

for kids. Do you think that’s fair?
I think it’s bigger than that. I think
there are so many themes in the
story. I wouldn’t say it’s particularly
about being anti-religion. It feels like
it’s anti-authoritarian. It’s about the
narrow-minded versus the expanse
of the world and the universe and
what’s possible. It’s a contrast of
small thinking and big thinking,
I suppose, and the limits that small
thinking can put on society. Religion
fits into some of that because some
religions are very controlling, but
I think it’s bigger than that in a way.

What was it like working with Dafne?

Dafne is really curious, and she’s got
no fear. She’s quite disarming
because she’s engaged in everyone.
She really has absolutely no fear.
There were a few other girls who
came into the audition process and
they were all brilliant, but she really
stood out. There is something quite
unique and unusual and perfect in
Dafne for Lyra.

“She’d better
tip me for
carrying her
suitcases.”

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 43

HIS DARK MATERIALS
settle on who you actually are, your daemon
also settles on a form, on an animal’s form. And
I guess the day that Lord Asriel’s daemon
settled as a snow leopard, he went, ‘Wow, I’m
totally badass, and I’m a real loner.’
“And this is the most interesting thing in this
world – once your demon settles you get to
look at yourself and go, ‘Wow, I’m a subservient
dog? Or I’m a flighty sparrow? Or I’m a badass
snow leopard that just walks his own path…’
It’s a relationship with yourself and your own
self-perception changes, because you’ve got a
reflection of yourself right in front of you.
You can’t hide from it. You can’t lie to it. You
can’t lie about yourself. And everybody else can
see what your soul is like as well. It makes for
interesting relationship dynamics.”
H OLY WA R S
Equally key to Pullman’s vision is the
Magisterium, the oppressive, all-powerful
Church that controls this world. The saga’s
take on organised religion has been
controversial: the Catholic League called for a
boycott of the books, while the Craig/Kidman
movie was criticised for softening Pullman’s
stance in the name of broader box office appeal.
“One of the great things about His Dark
Materials is there’s so many different
conversations to have about it,” says Tranter.
“And there are many conversations about the
religious aspect. Like all conversations these
days, it’s better to have one with some facts on
the table, rather than just lots of assumptions
that lots of people who haven’t read the books
sometimes make about the religion.
“Philip Pullman, in these books, is not
attacking belief. He’s not attacking faith. He’s
“No you can’t
stay up late to
watch bloody
Love Island.”
not attacking religion, or the Church per se.
He’s attacking a particular form of control,
where there is a deliberate attempt to withhold
information, keep people in the dark, and not
allow ideas and thinking to be free. And at
times that can be personified by an autocratic
form of government, or a church, or whatever
it is. In His Dark Materials it’s personified by
the Magisterium, but it doesn’t equate to any
particular church or form of religion in our
world, and we should be clear on that.”
For Thorne it’s all about Lyra, the heart of
Pullman’s tale. “When we were pitching it
around town, the thing I kept on saying was
The Xmas
crackers had
some really
good prizes.
The zoo’s fake
polar bear
wasn’t fooling
anyone.
His milliner
was rubbish
at making
bowler hats.
that this is an anti-superhero story,” he says. “If
this was a superhero story, you’d be following
Lord Asriel’s path. There are people that are
seeking greatness in this story, and there are
people that are following their own goodness.
And the thing I love about Lyra is she’s
constantly following the path of the good.
“I’ve got a tattoo that’s from E.T.: ‘Be good’. I
really believe that we should be following our
goodness right now, and we are getting
distracted by greatness quite a lot in these
arguments. There’s something very beautiful
about the way that Philip sees the world, and
the way he communicates this world, that I
think has lessons for all of us.”
Children love dark,
complicated themes and
questions about who we
are and where we are
“In my experience children love dark,
complicated themes and questions about who
we are and where we are,” says Tranter.
“Pullman never underestimates children,
either as the heroine of his books, or as his
readers. He says what he wrote was adult
books that children should read. And I hope
that we ended up making an adult piece that
children will watch and should watch.”
A second series is already commissioned
– time to sharpen that subtle knife.
His Dark Materials airs on BBC One on
Sundays and on HBO every Monday.
 HIS DARK MATERIALS

LIN-MANUEL
MIRANDA
is Lee Scoresby

Were you familiar with the books?

I was obsessed with the books. I read
them as my wife and I started dating.
There were a couple of book series
that we read together, which is both
romantic and dorky. I think that it’s
such a stunning coming-of-age
series. It’s beautiful and it’s got big
philosophical ideas, but at its core
it’s about growing up and the things
you have to go through to become
who you are. It just takes place in
a universe adjacent to our own.

How do you fit into the story?

I think Lee Scoresby is the Han Solo
of this franchise. It makes no sense
that he’s in the story except that he
is! What’s thrilling is that this is a
world where you’ve got forces like
the Magisterium, you’ve got humans
with their souls outside of their body
in animal form – and you have a
Texan Aeronaut who flies a hot air
balloon. And that’s how I come in.

How do you relate to your daemon?

Mine is like a buddy comedy. I’m a
character who spends a lot of time
alone, who picks pockets and scams
their way through life. And so my
conversations with my daemon are
really some of the chattiest in the
show because I’m alone all the time.
If you have ever seen me on the
subway singing to myself because
I’m writing lyrics, it’s not that far
from my actual reality.

Your daemon’s a bunny…

It’s an Arctic hare, which are about
knee-high. This ain’t Thumper! I think
why an Arctic hare suits Lee is they
can survive on anything. They survive
in really tough conditions. They’re
totally scrappy survivors, and so is
Lee Scoresby. Go Texas!

She made sure

he didn’t have
a single hare
out of place.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 45

 WATCHMEN

THIRTY YEARS AFTER THE SEMINAL GRAPHIC NOVEL

WATCHMEN CHANGED THE MEDIUM, SHOWRUNNER
AND EXECUTIVE PRODUCER DAMON LINDELOF HOPES
TO HONOUR THE WORK THAT INSPIRED HIM
WORDS: TARA BENNETT

HEY SAY, “WRITE WHAT YOU KNOW.” I would not be where I am, there would be no
For television showrunner/writer Damon Lost,” he states emphatically.
Lindelof, there are certain topics he
knows very well, and tackles often in his TH IR D TI ME LUC KY
series such as Lost and The Leftovers: In the years since Lost, Lindelof admits he’d
mysterious and supernatural phenomena, been approached twice about adapting the
deeply conflicted characters, parental issues, book, which he says was flattering, but he was
faith and grief. too scared to even contemplate it. But after he
But there’s another topic he also knows put The Leftovers to bed, he says the third time
intimately, yet he’s never really was the charm. “At
tackled it until now: Alan the very least, I felt like I
Moore and Dave owed myself the internal
Gibbons’s graphic novel questioning of ‘if you
Watchmen. were to do it, what
“I’ve been in love with would you do?’ And at
Watchmen from the this stage in my career,
moment that I first met the only thing that I can
it. And that love has try to do as a storyteller
never wavered,” Lindelof is something different
tells SFX on the phone than what I’ve done
from his office in Los before, and to circle back
Angeles. The 12-issue to the thing that really
series from the inspired me.”
mid-eighties was the Lindelof says after he
first real deconstruction They’ll never got over knowing Alan
of superheroes in the accept this as Moore would never
comics medium, positing your passport sanction what he was
what impact these photo, mate. doing, his imagination
“heroes” would have (at and the ideas got
that time) on modern flowing. “I was like,
America if their power wasn’t always used for maybe there’s a version of Watchmen, as long as
good, or the betterment of mankind. I don’t adapt the original which had already
Trippy, nihilistic, disturbing, yet darkly been done in 2009 by Zack Snyder. What if I
comedic and non-linear in its presentation, keep the initial 12 issues canon so that I’m not
Watchmen rocked young Lindelof’s world doing any rebooting? Is there space for kind of
and, in some way or another, it has inspired a new story? The show could be basically the
everything he’s written professionally. “I can ultimate intersection between a new story and
tell you with a very high degree of certainty potentially the continuation of the old story.
that had Watchmen never been written, Because if I wasn’t making Watchmen, I would

46 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 WATCHMEN

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 47

 WATCHMEN

want to know exactly what happened to some

of those characters.”
He then looked at what’s going on in the
world today for the equivalent hot-button
event that the nuclear threat was in Moore’s She always
narrative. To Lindelof, it was clearly racial took photo ID
issues and polarisation that has only become to the drive-in
worse in the current political climate. Using off licence.
the Tulsa Massacre of 1921 (documented in
the book The Burning by Tim Madigan) as a
historical entry point to the issue, he shifted to
the now, and how culturally behind society is
with portraying superhero diversity.
While an avowed fan of both the Marvel and
DC films, Lindelof says that doesn’t negate the
disparity in representation on the big screen.
“I started wondering why are there no black
superheroes,” he explains. “Ask that question
inside the context of Watchmen and the answer
is obvious, which is there is systemic white
supremacy in America. The superhero is an
American construction and if a black person
decided to start fighting crime, they wouldn’t “Anyone else
get very far because white people who put on finding it hard
masks are heroes, and black people who put to breathe in
on masks are villains.” these things?”

O RI G I N T RAUM A
Lindelof then saw a space to bring in original
characters to explore these incendiary topics
30 years after the events in the book. “You
know, when it comes to the origin stories of
superheroes, trauma is baked into the ones
that really resonate,” he says. “If you take
Spider-Man, he never decides to become
Spider-Man if Uncle Ben is not killed.
Superman is orphaned. His parents die and
he’s the sole survivor of this distant planet,
Krypton. The trauma in that loss, even though
he’s raised by the Kents, the sense of not
belonging, being the last of his kind, these
are central to the character. And then the
more that I thought
about it, Tulsa 1921
started to feel like Hope comes with a
Krypton to me.”
Through new
cost... If the show doesn’t
With his writer’s room of 12, Lindelof says
in true Watchmen spirit they confronted the
uncomfortable and darkest parts of humanity
for the story they wanted to tell. “They are
people of all sizes and shapes and genders and
colours and sexualities,” he explains. “I wanted
to make sure that they were not a group of
sycophants sitting around telling me that every
idea I had was the greatest thing since sliced
bread. More importantly, I had people who
said, ‘If you’re going to tell this story, it’s really
not your story to tell, but we will trust you
insomuch as you let it be our story.’ And so it
became our story. And that’s not me shirking
responsibility. If the
show works, it’s
because it was our
story. If the show
doesn’t work, it was
all those years ago: disconcerted, challenged
and out of sorts.
“There’s a lot of great storytelling out there,”
he offers. “Nobody loves these Marvel movies
more than I do, and even though sometimes
beloved characters die at the end, those movies
always end with some degree of triumph and
hope. I feel like you can’t really do that in
something called Watchmen. That doesn’t
mean that it’s nihilistic, but hope comes with
a cost.
“I think that ultimately the message is I trust
you, the audience, to take from this what you
are going to take from it. That doesn’t mean
that I didn’t pick a lane, or that the other
writers didn’t, or Nicky [Kassell] didn’t, or the
actors didn’t. I think that if it doesn’t make you
feel a little bit yucky, it’s not Watchmen.”

characters like Regina make you feel yucky, it’s
King’s Angela Abar/
Sister Night, Louis
not Watchmen
Gossett Jr.’s Will
Reeves, and others to be revealed, including
familiar names like Laurie Blake/Silk Spectre
(Jean Smart) and Doctor Manhattan, Lindelof
and his writers created a 2019 landscape that,
like the book, plays with alternate history and
the details of everyday life. That familiar yet
oddly off canvas allows them to explore
where society is three decades later as the
police now have to wear masks while out
on patrol, and white supremacy is on the
rise again via The 7th Kavalry, a domestic
terrorist group that uses Rorschach’s mask
and methodology.
a noble effort.” Watchmen airs Mondays on Sky Atlantic.
Lindelof admits
it’s a heady mix of
seemingly “I really
impenetrable big issues, canon continuations should get a
of stories from the source work (and healthy nice carpet for
servings of Easter eggs that will satisfy the this place.”
most ardent of Watchmen fans), deeply
personal character moments and a mystery
that will have closure by the end of nine
episodes. It’s a lot to balance, but Lindelof
sounds like he’s at peace with the story that’s
spiraled out from the original work that he
loves so much.
In fact, Lindelof is hoping that audiences
at least walk away from the series feeling
exactly how he felt when he finished the book

48 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 WATCHMEN

“Can we use
candles? They’re
much more
romantic.”

“Change the Stop chatting

channel – and get back
Countdown’s to work. Time
just started.” is money!

Nicole Kassell, Watchmen executive producer, on making the show

Did your collaboration on The Leftovers with Damon Lindelof
directly lead to Watchmen?
Yes. I loved working on his shows and he was just really happy with the
work I did. Then that show ended and I heard, like we all did, that he
was doing Watchmen. A couple of months before he started to officially
look for a director, I wrote him a note and just said, “I want to do it.”
I had not read the book, or seen the movie. I just knew if he was doing
it, I wanted to do it.
How did he pitch you his angle on it?
Over Christmas of 2017 he first called to talk to me about what he was
doing and it really just blew me away. Then I read the script and it
astonished me. I was reading it in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the
themes and issues that he was touching on were really just
vibrating in all of us. So politically, thematically, it just
personally really resonated.
Then the visual potential, as an artist, it was so fucking
awesome because it’s so big, bold and wild. [In the pilot],
I got to direct a musical, got to have a flying ship and go
to a castle in some unknown place. You couldn’t have
a more wild ride, and it was exhilarating.
How did you approach adapting the visuals of the
graphic novel?
I definitely did a deep, deep dive on the comic. It’s
not a direct adaptation, but what was so fun is always
looking at how can we pay homage to the source.
The most obvious thing is the vertical framing.
I drew heavily from the source in framing, just trying to find verticals
within a horizontal frame, big wide shots for eyes, crushing close-ups
and transitions that are visual. And it’s Watchmen, so clocks are
important, and then the circle just became a motif.
Talk about the outlandish American Hero Story segments within
the episodes...
It was just a blast in terms of tone and genre and getting to make
an entirely different piece of work within this piece of work. In our
present day, it’s dark, gritty, very grounded in realism. For this, we
said let’s go hyper graphic and so literally we lit it entirely differently.
Technically, we approached it from the opposite angle. Reds pop. It’s
the sensationalised version of who is Hooded Justice, so it was fun to
put on screen, [showing] that we could have made Watchmen this, but
we’re not.
Jeremy Irons has his own storyline happening in the Welsh
countryside. It’s confounding yet intriguing.
In the first episode, we want you to think suddenly you’ve
ridden into Remains Of The Day. The goal actually is
confusion, but not in an annoying way. As you start to
watch, we slowly make it weirder and weirder. Episode one,
it’s a horseshoe, and what’s he doing with a horseshoe?
Episode two, why are tomatoes on a tree? Then the play… it
was heaven on Earth to direct! Then, obviously at the end of
the play, we are not in Remains Of The Day. Where are we?
That was absolutely the goal. Like in Watchmen [the comic],
there is the other story within the story.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 49

 THE MANDALORIAN

A N D

50 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 THE MANDALORIAN

L O W
AS THE FIRST LIVE- AVE FILONI HAS BEEN TELLING
stories in a galaxy far, far away for a long time
ACTION STAR WARS now. As an animator, writer and director at
TELEVISION SERIES Lucasfilm Animation, he’s helped to chart the
creative trajectory of the various animated
HITS SCREENS – IN series all the way back to Star Wars: The Clone Wars, right
SOME AREAS , AT LEAST up to the present day.
– SFX CATCHES UP Mentored by George Lucas on everything from
mythology to blocking sequences, Filoni has evolved into
WITH DIRECTOR AND a walking encyclopaedia of Star Wars, earning the respect
MAN-IN-THE-KNOW of fans and critics alike for some of the tightest storytelling
in the universe. Which is why, when the news broke that
DAVE FILONI he was dipping a toe into live-action waters as a writer/
director on the Star Wars TV series The Mandalorian, there
was a resoundingly positive response from the fandom. The
WORDS: JAMES MOTTRAM warm reception provided some wind in his sails, as Filoni
admits to SFX that it was nerve-wracking – but also that it
was time to test himself.
“We all feel like Luke at one point in our lives, you
know?” he muses, considering when life-changing moments
pop up. “And I think people are mistaken when they think
you just go through that once in life. You’re always going
through it. Sometimes it just means you need to challenge
yourself. And as comfortable as I’ve become in the animated
world, working with such a great team, they know my notes
before I give them here at Lucasfilm Animation. So it was
good to step outside my comfort zone and work in live
action, and meet these other talented people.”

ALL IMAGES © LUCASFILM/DISNEY

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 51

 THE MANDALORIAN

The high street

has really gone
downhill over
the years.

Of course, Filoni’s main collaborator on The

Mandalorian isn’t a new face, but an old friend:
director/writer/actor Jon Favreau. The pair
first met in 2008 at Skywalker Ranch, when
Filoni was working there on Clone Wars and
Favreau was mixing Iron Man. They secretly
watched each other’s projects. This spurred
Filoni to write the character of Death Watch
leader Pre Vizsla for Favreau, who he’s voiced
since 2010.
“When we needed something for that show
he came in, did the lines and would ask me for
extra takes just to get it right because he felt he
could improve it,” Filoni remembers. “I think
that speaks to his tremendous character. He
really cares about everything he works on, and
very much about the people he works with.”
So when President of Lucasfilm Kathleen
Kennedy shared with Filoni that Favreau
had pitched her a story that centred on
Mandalorians, Filoni was intrigued.
“I thought, ‘Well that’s funny, because he
was a Mandalorian on my show, and I’m going
to take that as meaning he enjoyed the
experience!’” Filoni laughs.
Not long afterwards, Kennedy connected the
two of them again to talk about Favreau’s ideas
for the series.
“I think he’s got such strong instincts,” Filoni
says of Favreau. “He’s obviously a great
storyteller, but having worked on Star Wars
a long time I can be pretty picky about what
I think is going to work and what’s not. But I
really enjoyed what he was getting at and
saying. Just in the way he wanted to go about
making the series, as he’s a very technology-
forward guy and makes it work for his
storytelling. He’d been working on The Lion
King, which is very familiar to me, being from
animation. Some of the digital techniques, and
some of the virtual blocking they were doing,
really fitted with the ideas of the story.”
Favreau gave him the pilot script of The
Mandalorian for feedback.
“He very much had an idea of what he
wanted to do and he just went to town, and
sent me the script,” Filoni explains. “He caught
me off guard. I didn’t even read it for a couple
of days, because I was busy. When I finally read
it, I just really liked his instinct. I really liked
where the story was going. I was like, ‘I want to
know more.’ And then he had another one.”
From there, the two created an informal
writers’ room for the show.
“The best way to describe our process is just
two people sitting in a room talking about Star
Wars,” Filoni chuckles. “It’s that simple and
that complex at the same time.”
Their collaboration resulted in Filoni
directing two episodes, including the pilot, as
well as writing an episode.
G O W E ST
As evidenced by the trailer footage, there’s
a rough and dusty look to the series, which,
set after the fall of the Empire, follows the
grimy existence of a bounty hunter known only
as The Mandalorian (Pedro Pascale). Filoni
says the series’ aesthetic comes out of his and
Favreau’s love of samurai films and westerns
like Yojimbo (1961) and A Fistful Of Dollars
(1964).
“You always know how talented the great
people are in the industry, but to imagine how
they did what they did when they did it…”
Filoni says, with genuine awe of that era’s
filmmakers. “The vision, it’s really humbling.
So, you sit there and take inspiration from it
and ultimately you tell stories that you like,
and that you are
influenced by. And
those are some big The flexibility of
touchstones for me
going into this.
Star Wars means an
“A New Hope is my unceasing number
favourite of the Star
Wars films,” he of stories we can tell
continues, regarding
the show’s inspirations. “Probably because
I was young – but it just feels good to me. It
almost feels a bit documentarian to me, in the
way that it’s voyeuristic. I think George,
coming off [his 1973 film] American Graffiti,
had a lot of that sensibility. A New Hope is like
an adventure with a smash-up of American
Graffiti and [Lucas’s debut feature] THX 1138.
So I was really interested in that aesthetic, and
[director of photography] Greig Fraser, who
He loved
his novelty
cigarette
lighter.
shot Rogue One, nailed that when they did that
film. It feels so good, and it fits so nicely with
that classic film.”
Using that mixture as their cinematic
shorthand, Favreau hired Fraser to be the
director of photography on the series, also
bringing on-board frequent collaborators like
production designer Andrew Jones and first
AD Kim Richards to build the world.
As someone
coming to live action
for the first time,
Filoni says he soaked
up how everyone on
the production team
from Favreau down
worked to execute the
overall vision.
“I prepared as best I could,” he says. “Star
Wars is an unpredictable thing, and the things
you’re trying to do on a daily basis are fantastic
and bizarre. And it was the full Star Wars
experience for me every day, in these bizarre
locations with these bizarre characters. I really
enjoyed it.
“It’s strange to say, being the director of the
pilot, but I think a big asset that people don’t
use enough is listening. So when Jon was

52 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


That’ll look
lovely hanging
on the living
room wall.
talking on this project, I was listening. It was
a really fascinating process. I think I had just a
slight leg up in confidence because I was taught
by George [Lucas]. As a live-action director, the
way that George looked at Clone Wars was very
much like the way he did pre-production for
his films. He would speak to me with terms like
blocking and staging. He would give me a hard
time if the cameras digitally didn’t track an
object the right way. He would say, ‘You know,
a real camera operator would never miss that,
or would never land on that.’ He was giving me
this live-action point of view on things.”
Filoni reveals that he appreciated that
the crew never treated him like he was a
neophyte on set.
“Even though I came from animation, the
whole team really embraced what I brought,
which was the knowledge of Star Wars – and to
some degree, I think, the legacy of Lucasfilm.”
He also says that the pressure to get The
Mandalorian right was ever-present for
everyone on set.
“That was one area that I have plenty of
experience of: telling people, ‘No, you’re doing
it. This is great. Don’t worry about it. You know
it.’ They all were able to help get out of me
what was best, and I hope that I in turn
inspired them. That was how I could
contribute in a very meaningful way to get
people to embrace this thing and have the
confidence to create the Star Wars universe,
ALL IMAGES © LUCASFILM/DISNEY
which they did very, very well. I’m very proud
of them.”
Filoni is no stranger to serialised storytelling
thanks to his experience of the Star Wars
animated series. When SFX asks him which
of the earlier shows feels most like The
Mandalorian in terms of how the narrative
will unfold, he takes a minute to ponder his
Even the
parking
meters are up
for a scrap!
answer carefully so as not to give too much of
the plot away.
“Clone Wars was certainly not linear, at least
in the early seasons, because it jumped around
the timeline,” he assesses. “That was definitely
an expression of George’s unending creativity
and ability to find stories all over the place. In
Rebels, I really wanted to try a longer game; an
episodic feeling of individual episodes that are
all meaningful, but then are playing to a bigger
arc. That’s the kind of thing that I think I
gravitate to. It’s interesting, because having
now gone back and done Clone Wars again, it’s
back to more of the previous format, because
it’s bending that show. And that’s definitely
made an impact on what I did in Clone Wars,
in the most positive way.
“But I think that Star Wars can work in
many different ways. It’s one of the strengths
of the franchise. You can do a one-off and it
can be incredibly meaningful, or you can do
a broader story arc. And sometimes you’re
getting the broader arc when you don’t know
it. So the flexibility of Star Wars means an
unceasing number of stories that we seem to
be able to tell.”
Whether it’s live-action or animation, Filoni
says he’s just happy to still be playing in the
Sarlacc pit sandbox.
“This is my fifteenth year doing Star Wars
television now, across multiple series. I’m as
excited as I was on day one to tell each story.
And I don’t think there are many things you
can say that about after that length of
time,” he smiles.
The Mandalorian starts streaming
on Disney+ in the US on 12
November. A UK launch date
for Disney+ is still TBC.
THE MANDALORIAN
WHAT WE K N OW
ABO UT TH E
MAN DALOR IAN
They’ve managed to keep
almost everything secret
so far. We round up the
facts, and a couple of
rumours...
Number of episodes Eight
Showrunner Jon Favreau
Directors Deborah Chow,
Rick Famuyiwa, Dave Filoni,
Bryce Dallas Howard, Taika Waititi
Cast Pedro Pascal, Gina Carano,
Giancarlo Esposito, Emily Swallow,
Omid Abtahi, Nick Nolte,
Carl Weathers, Werner Herzog,
Taika Waititi
The Mandalorian takes place five
years after Return Of The Jedi. In the
official Star Wars chronology, that
means that the New Republic has
defeated the Empire for the last
time, Mon Mothma has signed the
“Galactic Concordance” (a kind of
cosmic peace treaty), and the
remnants of the Imperial top brass
have travelled through the “Unknown
Regions” of the galaxy to start the
First Order. Obviously we’ll hear from
those guys later in the saga, but at
this point in the Star Wars
chronology, that galaxy far, far away
is in a state of flux. And with some
three decades to go until the events
of The Force Awakens, there’s a lot
of unexplored territory for the
show’s writers to get their teeth into.
There will also, apparently, be
Stormtroopers, with members of the
501st Legion playing extras. “It was
every kid’s dream just to see a
Stormtrooper,” director Taika Waititi
told a Television Critics Association
panel in February. “When you’re
doing these scenes with 50 or 60 of
them, it’s pretty amazing. I loved it.”
But with the Empire gone, who are
the Stormtroopers working for?
The time period of The Mandalorian
also makes rumours about Star Wars
Rebels’ resident Mando warrior
Sabine Wren making an appearance
plausible. Making Star Wars has
reported that her characteristic
helmet has been spotted in the
production, and seeing as we
know from the finale of Rebels
that Sabine is still very much in
action after the Battle of Endor,
it’s not much of a stretch to
assume that she’d still be
active a few years later.
An A-list composer will
soundtrack the show, in
the form of Ludwig
Göransson, who picked
up an Oscar nomination for
his work on Black Panther.
Jack Shepherd
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 53
 ANTHONY DANIELS
WITH THE FINAL SCENES RECORDED ON THE RISE OF SKYWALKER, THE ONLY ACTOR TO
APPEAR IN ALL 11 STAR WARS MOVIES HAS WRITTEN A BEHIND-THE-SCENES BOOK.
ANTHONY DANIELS TELLS SFX THAT IT’S NEVER REALLY OVER FOR C-3PO
HAS BEEN GRANTED AN
audience with one of the world’s
biggest sci-fi icons, but chances are
most people would walk past him in the street.
Fortunately we’re not “most people” and
Anthony Daniels is instantly recognisable when
we meet in a London restaurant. Not least
because we’ve both just returned from another
Star Wars event in LA which, in typical
“timey-wimey” SFX ways, we can’t talk about
until next issue.
But that’s fine – because we’re here to
discuss 40-plus years of playing arguably the
most famous robot in science fiction, C-3PO. Or
SHUTTERSTOCK (1). PICTURE © LUCASFILM/DISNEY
rather, his new book I Am C-3PO: The Inside
Story, which does a very good job of covering
everything. Well, not quite everything.
“I notice now when people publish a book,
they always have an amazing revelation about
having slept with the Pope, or something,”
Daniels smiles. “And I just think that’s so
trashy. So sorry guys. Nothing like that.”
He laughs and refers to his Twitter account.
“Somebody very quickly, when it was
announced, said, ‘Oh, God, not somebody else
54 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
WORDS: DARREN SCOTT
who’s had an affair with Harrison Ford. I can’t
live with it.’ It absolutely made me crease up.”
The book covers his Star Wars experience
– written in a style fans may remember from
his Wonder column in the fan club magazines.
But while there are elements he describe as
“silly”, he also acknowledges that “there are
elements that are far darker and possibly a
little deeper”.
In particular, there’s a section where Daniels
talks about how unhappy elements of the
original 1977 movie had made him – to the point
where he considered not repeating the role.
“I try to write very honestly because if you’re
going to do it, you might as well do it properly.
So I do talk about negativity and so on.”
Cleverly, it’s never a bitter book – more
often self-deprecating than finding faults in
others. But when there is cause, it’s handled
delicately and – as you might expect – with the
right protocols.
“It’s not dwelled on, thank you for noticing
that,” he nods when we discuss a clash with
Return Of The Jedi director Richard Marquand.
“Some of the material with him is verbatim
because it stayed with me so strongly. He’s
dead now. Really, it’s unfair to speak about him
because he can’t answer back. But I was in his
face at the time, because he was in mine. And
I had nothing to lose. He was insulting me, and
not just to me. So what I’ve written there is fact,
and I can actually picture the scene, in a forest
glade, when I told him to sod off, basically.”
BA KER BU ST- UP
Another fractious relationship, with R2-D2
co-star Kenny Baker, is also handled in a
delicate way – particularly given the current
trend for sensationalism.
“We live in an age of hyperbole and
dramatisation,” he agrees. “I could have said
a lot more, but, you know…” he pauses. “We’ve
moved on. It was difficult. When you have
somebody constantly slagging you off, it’s like,
‘People don’t do this.’ I ignored him for the
most part, but it wasn’t that easy, because
people would attack me and my wife on the
grounds that they believed everything that
Kenny said. As he grew more distant from the
movies, the louder he got, which was curious.”
 ANTHONY DANIELS

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 55

 ANTHONY DANIELS

The infamous Filming a scene

Star Wars for The Empire
Holiday Special. Strikes Back.

On set in
Tunisia during
A New Hope.

The crew fit
his costume in
A New Hope.

With his best

pal in Attack
Of The Clones.

“It’s my Oscar for Happier times

Best Supporting with R2 actor
Droid, honest.” Kenny Baker.

Another pause. “You know, I lived with it, original trilogy, with Daniels stepping outside reservations, given the now-documented
and he’s passed, and I’ve said what I’ve said.” for fresh air and seeing the Millennium Falcon problems he experienced in 1977?
The book also looks forward, with details being smashed up and burned. “They were tremendously supportive, my
about filming on The Rise Of Skywalker. “I’ve “It’s one of the most poignant moments,” he team, everybody on set. Daisy [Ridley] and
been able to write in a way that doesn’t spoil recalls. “They explained that there was no way John [Boyega], they would just catch me as
anything. I’ve shown JJ everything, and he’s to store it. All the huge steel infrastructure had I was about to topple over, and they would just
fine with it. You certainly get a flavour of the gone back somewhere in Wales, I think, to be point me in the right direction.
filming, but I’m totally melted down. But “They’re particularly well brought up. ALAMY (4), GETTY (3), SHUTTERSTOCK (1). PICTURES © LUCASFILM/DISNEY
against spoilers.” here was all the toot, They’re very kind people. I think it’s possibly
Those left wanting I felt self-conscious and you could because I’m literally like a grandfather, and
a little bit more – as is
always the way when
that C-3PO is so over the recognise things. It
just felt weird.”
they can see when I’m about to go. Because
I can’t!
Star Wars and good top. But the character But did he manage “With Daisy, John and Oscar [Isaac], because
writing collide – may
have their wish
works, curiously. It to keep anything from
the set this time?
we’re rehearsing without the costume, I just
bash in as C-3PO. And I’m suddenly aware of
fulfilled in the future. always has worked “Grains of sand,” he the different acting styles. They are utterly
“What I do have is, deadpans, recalling believable. I’m never sure when Oscar is acting
of course, a fuller account of the production on time spent on the planet Pasaana. “Filming in on that. ‘Is this the scene? Have we started?’
Episode IX, because at the same time I was the desert, it’s like glitter on a Christmas card. Because he flows.
paraphrasing here, I was actually writing pretty In Episode IX I thought we’d cleaned “Not for the first time, I felt sort of self-
much a blow-by-blow, joyously, because it was everything up. And then, of course, we go back conscious that C-3PO is so completely over the
such a wonderful filming experience. But I to the studio and recreated some of the desert. top, and so overt, and totally unnatural. But
can’t talk about that at this moment.” So I was covered in it.” the character works, curiously. It always has
With filming completed and sets dismantled, Filming in a desert for the final film brings worked. He’s always been him – he can’t
we turn to a scene in the book at the end of the everything full circle – did he not have any change now.”

56 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


Miss Piggy
auditioned for
A New Hope!
SU ITS YOU
He jokes about still having limited vision in the
C-3PO helmet, over 40 years on.
“JJ on set one day said to me, ‘Can’t you see
your mark?’ I replied, ‘No, I can’t, because it’s
down there.’”
Even after all these movies and various other
appearances, they still haven’t found a way to
make the suit properly functional...
“It works in places. It doesn’t work in others.
But that’s fine, because it’s over.”
But is Star Wars ever really over?
He grins. “I mean, it’s insane. As you know,
now, this is the third time I’ve said, ‘Goodbye,
it’s over.’ I say this with all honesty today. I
believe it’s over now. I would be happy to be
disabused of that.
“There will be other things, I’m sure. C-3PO
is too major a figure, too major a player in that
universe to disappear forever. And let’s face
it, in a Star Wars film, nobody is ever dead.
Nobody doesn’t come back, or doesn’t have
the ability to come back.
“C-3PO as a Force ghost? I don’t think that’s
going to happen. But, you know, he can be
Looking worried
during The Force
Awakens.
From left: Harrison Ford,
Anthony, Carrie Fisher
and Peter Mayhew.
reconfigured. I’m not saying this because I’m
partly involved in it. But he has the ability to
appear somewhere else. And that’s fine. Right
now, you know, taking a break wouldn’t be the
worst thing.
“Episode IX – because I was wonderfully
involved so much of the time, it was actually
quite a lot of work. It was hugely enjoyable but
surprisingly tiring. It was a great joy to be part
of it. A great job. Because often we worked
quite late we eventually resorted to not waiting
until we got home in the car to have a glass of
wine – we’d take wine with us for the journey
so we arrived home already feeling… [makes
relaxed noise] Never on set!”
In the book, Daniels reveals he emailed JJ
Abrams about the size of his role. Abrams
replied: “You’re either going to hate or you’re
going to love how much you’re in this.”
Daniels chuckles. “Yes, it’s absolutely true.
And as you can tell, I really enjoyed working
with him. I love his attitude. I was amused at
how long chapter nine goes on for. It’s called
‘Joy’, because it was such a thrill to be back
with JJ.”
ANTHONY DANIELS
Pausing to reflect
during Revenge
Of The Sith.
So it’s little surprise that when the first
trailer for The Rise Of Skywalker landed, the
internet was full of theories about the droid’s
red eyes...
“So, C-3PO has always longed for revenge,
I suppose,” he laughs, before raising an
eyebrow and flashing a smile. “Not, of course,
that it may be revenge. It could all just be
a hoax…
“I’m constantly amazed by the crazy
inventiveness of what people consider on
the internet. They come up with the wildest
theories. And I think, ‘I don’t think this is right’
or ‘Have I forgotten something?’ You just think:
how do people think of this stuff? But they do.
All debate is good, you know? It keeps the
momentum up.
“I love it when people say on Twitter: ‘Star
Wars is dead. I’m never going to see this film.’
I want everybody who says that to give £50 to
charity when they go and see it, because: ‘I will
never, ever see it’ – they will not be able to
resist it. Get over it.”
I Am C-3PO: The Inside Story is available now.
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 57
 THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

HG WELLS’S ALIEN INVASION CLASSIC

THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

IS COMING TO OUR SCREENS AGAIN,
AND THIS TIME IT HASN’T BEEN
TRANSPLANTED TO THE MODERN-
DAY USA. WE VISITED THE SET
WORDS: IAN BERRIMAN

58 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
TYPE © ISTOCK

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 59

 THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
EVERYONE WE SPEAK TO HAS A
different nickname for it. The giant Ferrero
Rocher (male lead Rafe Spall). The great
Scotch egg (co-star Eleanor Tomlinson). A
Chocolate Orange (the director). A painted
Zorb ball (the producer). Our take? An
enormous mouldy tangerine.
April 2018. SFX is at Ainsdale Nature
Reserve, Merseyside, which is doubling for
Horsell Common, near Woking, for a new
three-part take on HG Wells’s Martian invasion
classic The War Of The Worlds. Behind us a scar
of devastation – blackened vegetation;
scorched, snapped-off tree trunks – stretches
a good hundred feet. (Don’t worry, ecologically-
conscious readers: the production took
advantage of some regular felling). Before us
sits the alien object whose arrival caused it:
a dirt-encrusted sphere maybe 15 feet in
circumference, poking out of the ground.
Spades and wheelbarrows suggest it’s been dug
out, while trestle tables laden with scientific
instruments and bottles of ginger beer attest
that it’s become the object of great curiosity.
60 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
Stepping past IKEA bags full of Edwardian
coats and hats, we perch on a blackened log
as 70-odd supporting artists in period clobber
– moustachioed bobbies with wooden
truncheons, women holding their long dresses
up to protect them from the mud – are led in.
It’s the hottest day of the year so far – not, as
one passing extra grumbles, the best time to be
wearing four layers of tweed...
We observe a short scene being shot. The
crowd looks on as a man moves forward,
holding a handkerchief to his face, and gingerly
places his palm on the pod, soil having dropped
off it in parts to reveal a smooth black sphere
beneath. When he lifts his hand off, it’s covered
in something viscous and black.
A little later on, we watch as the
“background” are told how to react as they
imagine the capsule rising into the air. “It’s
starting to rumble,” comes the barked
instruction. “Starting to rise. Twenty feet.
Thirty feet. Fifty feet. Cut!”
Zygon Invasion”, is the man responsible. So
TH E WOKI NG DE AD why take this approach?
Though this is not actually the first period- “It’s always been updated to reflect society
piece adaptation of Wells’s novel – that was a at the time it’s been made,” Harness tells SFX.
rather shonky 2005 direct-to-video movie – it “I just thought it was a lot cooler to do it back
is the first with any real profile. Peter Harness, then. That’s something I’d love to see, and I’ve
who adapted Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell got the chance to do it.”
and penned Doctor Who episodes like “The Harness also thought a period setting offered
the chance to “mash up different things” – a
The Grand key one being horror. “I thought of it more as
Designs water a horror film than a sci-fi thing,” he says.
feature was
a bit ropey.
The novel is a violent
story. There’s nothing
charming, nothing Jules
Verne-y about it
“I hope it’s going to be shocking. It’s such
a familiar narrative, but I wanted to make
sure that it was still as surprising as when it
came out.”
Given that we’re talking about a
19th century novel, this might raise
a few eyebrows. But if you go back
to the original book it’s vividly
gruesome, with the Martian Tripods
and their “heat wave” leaving
charred and trampled corpses in
their wake.

“That’s my
quiet walk in
the countryside
ruined.”
“I know it’s
Casual Friday,
but a dressing
gown...?”
“It’s actually a violent and brutal story,”
Harness points out. “It’s the story of what it
would actually be like if a deadly, heavily
weaponised enemy landed in the middle of
your village and started randomly killing
people. There’s nothing charming, nothing
Jules Verne-y about the book.”
Not only is Wells’s tale less cosy than you
might assume, it also has continuing resonance
in the era of the Syrian Civil War and the
refugee crisis – something Harness asserts it’d
be “irresponsible” not to acknowledge.
“Victorian/Edwardian England is almost the
epitome of Britishness,” he notes. “It’s what
THE WAR OF THE WORLDS
ROBBIE BU R NS
Robert Carlyle plays scientist Ogilvy
What attracted you to the script?
I realised Peter Harness had done Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell,
which I really enjoyed. The period setting was the other attraction.
I just loved the notion of these big Martian machines in this
Edwardian landscape.
What issues does the script touch upon?
The notion of refugees, which is very much in our world today;
these poor people that are displaced by war. That’s a theme
that runs through it: what is your home, where do you belong,
what is yours?
In the book, Ogilvy’s killed just 25 pages in. Presumably you last
a bit longer?
At the end of episode one you think he’s a goner, but he appears
again at the end of two, and then he’s all the way through three.
About all we learn about him in that is that he’s an astronomer.
Do we find out more about him here?
Little bits. There are clues that he’s a jack of all trades-type
scientist. What appealed to me about the part was that he’s quite
a modern man of his time. He has a female assistant [Amy], which
was pretty much unheard of. He takes on the church in episode
three. It’s all over by episode three – they’re gone, and the legend
has been created that it was God’s will that they left. This guy is
saying that isn’t the case. To take on the church back then was
quite a big deal. So it’s less of a background story and more, “This
is a modern man of his time.”
People disapprove of George and Amy’s relationship. What’s
Ogilvy’s attitude?
He says to Amy at one point, “It’s a gossipy place, Woking, but
I wouldn’t worry – you should hear what they say about me…
‘Gentleman bachelor of advancing years who keeps himself nicely
turned out.‘” And there’s a silence. We don’t go any further into it
than that, but that’s a massive thing to say back in those days. So
that’s where their bond is formed.
They’re kindred spirits, then?
They are, exactly right. It’s lovely that they find each other in what
we call the Red World at the end of episode two, where Ogilvy
comes back and tells her what’s happened to him – how he
escaped, and what his life’s been like, because it’s five years later.
He runs away and hides in a pipe, basically, for a long time. When
he appears the second time, he’s covered in burns, and I’m
wearing a half mask to cover the burns on his face. So he’s had
a hard time!
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 61
 THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

people feel nostalgic about, and that we should

return to. We’re blowing that up and making
everyone flee for their lives. I think it’s
interesting to say, ‘What would it be like to be
a refugee in your own land? What would it be
like for the great symbols of your society to be
destroyed, and suddenly to be running for your “For God’s
life?’ It’s not that I go into these things thinking sake Boris,
I’ve got a political tub to thump – I don’t think hurry up and
that’s necessarily a writer’s place. But you jump.”
should acknowledge when the stuff you’re
writing will have resonances, and try and use
them responsibly.”

M O DE R N R O M A NC E
What Wells’s novel does lack, however, are
deeply developed characters – the narrator
isn’t even named, and his wife barely exists.
Harness says “putting more flesh on their
bones” was his biggest challenge.
“You can’t really get away with not naming
your characters doing three hours of
television!” he laughs. “That’s been the hardest
work, to put in emotional drama without it
feeling tacked on.”
One way he’s done that is by inserting
elements of the life of HG Wells himself,
a proponent of free love whose numerous love
affairs caused quite a scandal.
“I’ve given them a history slightly based on
what Wells was doing at the time,” Harness “That’s the
says of his central couple. “He basically left last time we
his wife and took up with somebody else. And buy fireworks
they live in Wells’s house – Lynton, on from eBay.”
Maybury Road.”
Yes, George (as the male hero, played by conventional gender roles. “She’s much a bit fucking slippy!” Spall yells, after careering
Rafe Spall, is now named) and partner Amy tougher than he is,” he reveals. “I wanted to downhill. A second go proves equally alarming.
(Poldark’s Eleanor Tomlinson) are (gasp!) have her be the action hero, the capable one, “I don’t like doing that!”
“living in sin”, and attract society’s and George be the one who reacts emotionally, “I was very butch, wasn’t I?” Spall deadpans,
disapprobation as a result. For director Craig with empathy and horror, and she’s having to when we catch up with him. “I managed to stay
Viveiros (Rillington Place), this adds a new pull him through it.” on two feet, thank God.”
dimension to the tale. Before speaking to the cast, we get a brief Asked for his take on the central
“The original text was very much a survival glimpse of Rafe Spall in action as George, relationship, the actor responds with some
story,” Viveiros notes. “But this is a survival alongside Robert Carlyle (as Ogilvy, an faux gloom. “This is my first experience of
story in a different way. It’s, ‘How do you astronomer who employs Amy as his assistant). playing an older man with a younger woman.
survive with the one you love? How do The two start standing on a ridge overlooking It’s like, ‘Shit, I’m there now am I?’
you survive as a person and remain with your the Martian capsule, and simply have to dash “George has just come out of a loveless
dignity intact, and be the person you were down a slope. The detail of their period attire is marriage in order to pursue love with this
always meant to be?’” immaculate... until you glance down and notice fiercely intelligent, beautiful woman,” he
In fleshing out the protagonist and his some incongruous trainers. They clearly need continues, in a rare moment of seriousness.
partner, Harness has also switched the some extra grip, though. “Christ alive, that was “They are equals, and they’ve taken a leap of

T HE WA R OF T HE WORL DS: A T I MEL I N E

1897 1938 1949 1953 1973 1975
The book is An Orson Welles Ray Harryhausen Flying War Machines On an alternate Earth, Crossover novel
serialised in radio play uses fake produces advance on freedom fighter Killraven Sherlock Holmes’s
Pearson’s Magazine newscasts to concept art and modern-day LA, in battles the Martians War Of The Worlds
(UK) and The recount the Martian test footage for glorious Technicolor, after a second invasion, recounts what he,
ALAMY (2)

Cosmopolitan (USA). invasion. Some a stop-motion in the first movie, in the pages of Marvel’s Watson and Professor
A hardback follows listeners panic, not take. It’s never a George Pal Amazing Adventures. Challenger were up to
the next year. realising it’s fiction. actually made. production. at the time.

62 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 THE WAR OF THE WORLDS

collar or not. We can get a little bogged down in

the propriety, fetishising it. So you have to
approach it like you’re playing someone now.”

A M Y’S CHO I CE
Next up, Eleanor Tomlinson, who confirms
that her character is an extremely modern
woman. “There’s something slightly
unobtainable about Amy,” she says. “She’s not
under the thumb of British rules that women
were brought up with at the time. She was
brought up in India, so she has a very different
mindset. George had this stagnant relationship
before, and she’s this breath of fresh air for him.
Creating that with Rafe has been really fun.”
Another thing she’s enjoyed is that the
character’s so active. “Yeah, loads of action, lots
of stunts! There was a big horse chase escape
scene between Rafe and I. Then Rafe gets off
It had been the horse, and the horse spooks at something
one hell of and rears, and I did all that. It’s really cool!
a New Year’s What I love about her is that she’s the leader of
street party.
the two – she wears the trousers, as it were,
which is great.”
faith in a time when it was scorned upon to do So here’s the million-dollar question: given
so. They get together, much to the disapproval that this is a story which has been adapted
of society, and decide to move to Dorking. Then numerous times, why should people tune in?
Martians come and eradicate humanity. Won’t they know all the main beats?
Nightmare! As if things weren’t tough enough, “What’s brilliant about Peter’s version is that
what with Edwardian convention, fucking it’s very layered,” Tomlinson says. “There are
Martians! Then we get separated. Then we’re political themes, but he’s also switched around
trying to get back together. Then we do get the novel and made it more female-strong. And
back together. And then we’re trying not to die.” it’s the first British adaptation, so that’s very
Spall’s flippant, exciting – to have
self-deprecating our input on it,
humour seems rather There’s a very without it becoming
jarring from a man
dressed like an
talented group of people Hollywoodised. That
it’s being done in this
Edwardian gent. It’s involved in this, and it’s period will be really
hard to picture him
in a period drama.
not gonna be shit! refreshing as well.
So I think it’s got
Can’t they be a bit, a different flavour.”
well, fusty? Spall’s pitch is, well, just a little more blunt:
“I think the fustiness you talk about is “There’s a very talented group of people
fetishised in our culture,” he counters. “We involved in this, and it’s not gonna be shit! So
CG W EL L S
Making the Martians (and more)
When it came to the Martian Tripods, there
was a philosophy driving their design, as
visual effects producer Angie Wills explains.
“We built a Tripod based on a lot of
thinking about, ‘What would Edwardian
people really be frightened by?’” she says.
“What would scare them? Really simple
things, like the sources of light that they’d
see, because it’s a world of candlelight,
firelight. Electricity was only just beginning
to have a huge presence in everybody’s
homes. It’s very much a steam-powered
generation. This is very much away from
steampunk. Suddenly this new guy rocks up,
and he’s got stuff they’ve never seen before
– and simple stuff as well, like light sources.
I think if it rocked up here today we might
be a bit familiar with it, but if it was to put its
foot down in 1906 then it’d blow
everybody’s minds!”
As director Craig Viveiros explains, this
particular iteration of the Tripod is also a
little flaky… “It has a particular type of
exoskeleton,” he explains, “and when it
moves, it leaves a trail of its shell behind
wherever it goes. So we’ve got lots of little
bits of Martian limb and skin to leave behind.”
An element of the book that’s not always
present in adaptations also features: the
tendril-like plant life the invaders bring with
them. “We investigate the red weed quite
heavily, and its role in the Martians attempting
to terraform the Earth,” says Viveiros.
This meant that the effects team
essentially had to help create three different
worlds. “There’s the Empire world where
everything is shiny and powerful,” Wills
explains. “Then the middle world, where our
Martians come down and take over the
world. And they create this third world,
where it’s post-apocalyptic, and human
civilisation is trying to battle against
everything and comes back to life again.”

sort of get off on it. But if you look at the
photographs of Julia Margaret Cameron, you
see Victorians and they look like us. You read
Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky and people had the
same fears, the same concerns. People have
always been the same, whether they’re in a stiff
© MAMMOTH SCREEN/BBC
many things are, like, shit, aren’t they? ‘Oh, that
turned out shit.’ But hopefully this won’t turn
out shit. That’s all we can hope for.”
The War Of The Worlds starts airing on BBC
One on 17 November.

122 Y E A R S OF W EL L S ’ S I N VA DER S

1978 1988 1999 2002 2005 2017

David Essex, The The invaders wake The Martians invade Great Britain is Tom Cruise toplines Stephen Baxter
Moody Blues’ Justin from suspended 1938 Metropolis in DC transformed by the Spielberg novel The Massacre
Hayward and Thin animation in toxic one-shot Superman: reverse-engineered movie. This time Of Mankind, an
Lizzy’s Phil Lynott all waste drums to War Of The Worlds. Martian tech in the aliens emerge authorised sequel,
sing on Jeff Wayne’s possess human bodies Supes dies fighting steampunk comics from the ground details a second
prog rock concept in the TV series, a them off. sequel Scarlet Traces. after lying buried Martian invasion
album. sequel to the Pal film. for centuries. in 1920.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 63

 INGRID PITT

HAMMER LEGEND INGRID PITT PASSED AWAY NINE YEARS

AGO THIS MONTH. IN THIS PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED
INTERVIEW, SHE LOOKED BACK ON HER CAREER
WORDS: RICHARD PURDEN

64 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 INGRID PITT

HEN HAMMER
Films introduced Ingrid
Pitt during a press
conference in January
1970, it heralded a new
era for both the actress
and her employer. The
Vampire Lovers – based on Sheridan Le Fanu’s
1872 novella Carmilla – cemented Pitt’s place
as one of the cult figures of the period. The
tabloids salivated over the voluptuous Polish
actress (born Ingoushka Petrov), who brought
a touch of Eastern-European exoticism to the
studio’s gothic output. The role of Marcilla/
Carmilla – who preys on young women, and
turns out to be ancient bloodsucker Mircalla
Karnstein – kick-started the enduring image of
Pitt as a sexually-charged vampire.
Speaking at her home in Richmond Park in
2006, the actress remembered the making of
the film with great affection.
“We all got on really well – if you look at the
promotional stills of the female cast together
you can tell from looking at the pictures,” she
said. “We couldn’t stop laughing on set,
especially when my fangs kept falling out and
getting stuck between Kate O’ Mara’s tits,
which of course had various guys on the set
offering to help!
“I said to the runner, ‘Give me your gum.’ He
said, ‘I’ve been chewing it.’ I told him that’s
why I wanted it and I stuck it in the fangs to
keep them in place. Eventually I said to Kate, ‘I
really will kill you if you don’t stop laughing!’”

V IRGI N ON T HE R ID IC ULOUS
Pitt looked back on her second outing for
Hammer, Countess Dracula, with rather less
fondness. Set in the 17th century, it saw Pitt, in
a role based on the infamous Elizabeth
Báthory, rejuvenating herself by bathing in the
blood of virgins. The fact that her voice was
overdubbed by another actress was a major
source of frustration, but not her only vexation.
“When we finished the film a man rang me
from Scotland,” she recalled. “He was related
to Countess Elizabeth Báthory and he told me
information that would have been great to add
to the character. I asked him why he didn’t ring
me before and he told me that he knew nothing
about the making of the film. It was a tragedy,
because if I’d had known it would have been
immense. It was a great part to play.”
Shooting was marred by huge rows between
director Peter Sasdy and producer Alexander
Paal, and Pitt wasn’t afraid to get involved.
“They were both Hungarian and would have
these enormous arguments on set,” she said.
“So I learnt some swear words in Hungarian
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

and shouted at them! They were shocked and

soon shut up because they thought I
understood everything they were saying. They
were so upset and embarrassed that they
stopped arguing.”

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 65

 INGRID PITT

Pitt also felt the film didn’t go far enough in

its depiction of the Countess’s killings.
“I had a big row with Peter about the scene
where she’s bathing in the blood of a whore.
I told him she should be hanging upside down
by her feet for the blood to drip, not these tiny
drops coming from her wrist!”
Pitt’s penetrating blue eyes sparked into life
when she added that the figure-hugging
costumes were fitted for “my incredible body”.
Countess Dracula bolstered her growing
reputation as “the queen of horror” and “the
most beautiful ghoul in the world”.
1970 proved to be her annus mirabilis.
Alongside her lead roles for Hammer she also
appeared in four-part Amicus horror The
House That Dripped Blood, released the
following year. Pitt’s segment, “The Cloak”,
saw her acting alongside Jon Pertwee, who
played an actor who discovers that his new
costume gives him vampiric powers.
“I loved that film with Chris [Lee] and Peter
[Cushing]. From the first moment I read the
script, I thought it was so funny, and I felt that
I must have that part with Jon. The stills of me “If we stand
became my most famous pictures.” on the coffin
Indeed, the shots of Pitt as a glamorous there’s no way
vamp in a revealing black dress, rising out of a he’ll get out.”
coffin with freshly sprouted fangs and red lips Well, who
and fingernails, are her most iconic images. She wouldn’t be
had made a shrewd choice in turning down happy to work
Lust For A Vampire (1971) the titillating with Clint?
follow-up to The Vampire Lovers.
In 1972 Pitt won another lead, in Nobody
Ordered Love, a drama about the filming of a
low-budget World War One film, directed by
Robert Hartford-Davis. Sadly he arranged the
destruction of all prints before his death in 1977.
It remains on the BFI’s top 75 most-wanted list.
Then came The Wicker Man (1973), in which
Pitt played the Summerisle registrar from
whom Edward Woodward’s policeman,
investigating a young girl’s disappearance, The phone always
demands the local death register. Weeks before rang at the worst
this interview a remake starring Nicolas Cage possible moment.
bombed at the box office – much to the delight
of both Pitt and co-star Christopher Lee.
“They asked Christopher to be in the film;
he put the phone down on them. I love
R A N K O U T S I D E R
Christopher,” said Pitt, her wicked laughter How Pitt’s personal life affected The Wicker Man
filling the room.
With the threat of deportation actress was only able to return refused to even look at The
Pitt also appears at the film’s climax, as hanging over Pitt at the end of to the industry almost a decade Wicker Man, claiming it was
Woodward’s character is about to meet his the ’60s, she was running out later, after spending some years “uncommercial”. Rumours of an
grisly fate. of options. When George in Argentina, when Pinches lost alleged affair between Pitt and
“It was supposed to be set in spring but Pinches, a powerful booker for his position at Rank. He had the film’s producer Peter Snell
The Rank Organisation, offered also reached him, which was
when we filmed it was October and November her a platonic marriage perhaps another reason why
in Scotland – it was the kind of winter I was arrangement and industry Rank’s golden gong would not
used to in Poland,” she recalled. “It was connections, she eventually chime for the film. That also
freezing, and Edward was barefoot in a shroud. accepted his offer. meant the loss of distribution
He’d come and sit on the grass beside me and However, when Pitt refused by the Odeon cinema chain,
his advances during the owned by the company. The
say, ‘I want to put my legs under your frock. I’m marriage, Pinches became final nail in the coffin was when
freezing’. I said, ‘It doesn’t matter – you’ll burn bitter and made sure she was Pitt met her third husband-to-
in a minute, Edward. You’ll be nice and warm eventually blacklisted. The be, racing driver Tony Rudlin.
inside the wicker man.’ I let him warm his feet

66 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


“My goodness,
what large, erm,
hands you have.”
“Urgh,
tastes like
chicken!”
“Erm, any
chance you
could get me
a plaster?”
on my thighs! I always knew it was a fantastic
film but I never thought it would become such
a massive cult film. It stood the test of time.”
RE A L-L I FE HO RR O R S
Pitt also talked about her wartime experiences.
While she addressed the subject of being a
ALAMY (2), GETTY (2), SHUTTERSTOCK.COM (1)
concentration camp survivor in 1999
autobiography Life’s A Scream, she rarely
discussed it elsewhere. Born to a Russian/
German father and Polish/Jewish mother, her
parents were hunted by the Nazis after her
scientist father refused to work for the Reich.
Reflecting on her career, she spoke of terrors
too disturbing for her publishers to print.
“People often say to me, ‘Don’t you think it’s
a bad thing that you do horror? Why not
The gas chamber didn’t
work on the day my mother
and I were sent there
The induction
seminar for
her new job
was unusual.
comedy?’ I tell them I have nothing to laugh at.
I have to do horror because I’m full of horror.
“The gas chamber didn’t work the day my
mother and I were sent there, and we stood for
nine hours. We were taken into the forest to be
shot. It was only when Russian fighter planes
began to fire on the Germans that we escaped.
My mother threw herself on top of me and
didn’t move; at first, I thought she was dead.
She grabbed me and we went into the forest
and persuaded some Polish partisans to help.
Eventually, we heard a radio broadcast from
Winston Churchill saying the war was over.”
The family returned to their home in
Germany’s capital after the war and Pitt
trained at the Berliner Ensemble, founded by
Bertolt Brecht. But after she railed against the
INGRID PITT
East German authorities, a warrant was issued
for her arrest. Once again she was on the run.
In an attempt to reach the border she jumped
into the River Spree, only to be rescued by an
American lieutenant – who she would soon
marry and have her only child with, Steffanie.
When the marriage broke down Pitt
returned to Europe. After making several
Spanish films, her big break arrived with the
role of Heidi in World War Two classic Where
Eagles Dare (1968) – the performance that
caught the eye of Hammer producer James
Carreras. Working alongside Richard Burton
and Clint Eastwood, it gave Pitt an opportunity
to launch an international career, but there was
a grim psychological barrier to conquer.
“It was incredible to do that film, but every
day when I saw the German Wehrmacht it
made me sick,” Pitt recalled. “I had to always
go and spit at the side. Clint said to me: ‘It’s
over, will you stop it? It’s not the war!’”
Eastwood and Pitt soon became close,
though she rejected his advances.
“He invited me to the Bambi Ball in Munich.
I told him I couldn’t go, as my costume wasn’t
quite right. When I explained that my blouse,
skirt, apron and waistcoat needed some
additional work and that I’d be staying in my
room to do some sewing, I don’t think he
believed me. On our last day of filming a car
came and picked me up at the hotel and I
ended up sitting in between Richard and Clint
in the back seat. Clint said to Burton: ‘Shall we
tell her now?’, to which Clint revealed that they
had a bet on who’d get me into bed first. I said,
‘Who won?’ When I met Clint for dinner years
later I teased him, saying I should have
accepted his invitation.”
Pitt was to have been reunited with Burton
filming Wild Geese II (1985) but it wasn’t to be
after tragic news reached the set.
“It was another Nazi-related thriller,
involving the kidnapping of Rudolf Hess from
Spandau Prison. Just before filming was to
begin we heard that the leading man Richard
had died. Edward Fox replaced him and the
film was completely ruined! I had a terrible
time being back in Berlin and so close to the
border again.”
Sadly, four years after this interview was
conducted, the actress who brought such
an otherworldly vitality to those early ’70s
performances died from heart failure – just
two days after her 73rd birthday, on 23
November 2010. Her passing robbed us of
one of British cinema’s most vivacious and
outspoken stars.
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 67
 A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET

AT THE DAWN OF THE ’80S, WES CRAVEN HAD A DREAM.

IN REALISING IT, HOWEVER, HE WOULD ENCOUNTER
SEVERAL PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL NIGHTMARES.
SFX LOOKS BACK 35 YEARS TO THE ORIGINS OF

WORDS: BRIAN J ROBB

68 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET

ALAMY (1). ALL IMAGES © NEW LINE CINEMA

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 69

 A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET
BY THE EARLY-’80S, FORMER
Humanities professor-turned-filmmaker Wes
Craven had bought himself time to think. He’d
gone from the visceral shocks of his notorious
debut at the age of 30, The Last House On The
Left (1972) and The Hills Have Eyes (1977), to
the rural community chills of Deadly Blessing
(1981), and the comic-book capers of Swamp
Thing (1981). “I had done two pictures
back-to-back and I had some money in the
bank,” said Craven. “I decided I could afford to
write for six months. It was the first time in my
life I had time for that. It was completely
experimental work and it took me several years
to find the money to get the film made. That
became A Nightmare On Elm Street.”
His breakthrough film had its roots in
real-life dreams. “There was a series of
unrelated articles I’d clipped out of the Los
Angeles Times in about 1981,” recalled Craven
about the genesis of his dream killer. “Over
a period of about a year and a half, there were
incidents of people having severe nightmares,
telling their families how these dreams were
worse than anything they’d ever had before. All
of them had a similar reaction – they didn’t
want to sleep again. They were afraid of going
back to the dreams. They tried, one way or
another, to stay awake. The next time these
people fell asleep, they died.”
Recognising the cinematic potential, Craven
became intrigued by the idea of a “dream
killer” who reached his victims as they slept.
“I thought, ‘There has to be a movie in it.’ What
if somebody was trying to kill you in your
Freddy is vicious,
but he has a sense of
humour. He has a
humanity to him
70 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
His male
modelling
career never
really took off.
GREAT MINDS
dreams? Nobody you
told would ever take
you seriously. Then
DREAM ALIKE? it was a matter of
writing it down,
plotting it out. Who
would this killer be?”
When Wes Craven pitched his Nightmare Craven focused on a
movie around Hollywood, Paramount
rejected it as they saw similarities to the nightmare stalker and
Chuck Russell-scripted film Dreamscape a resourceful teenager
(1984), which they were distributing. who stays awake as
Ironically, Russell would go on to make his a defence against the
directorial debut with the third Nightmare,
Dream Warriors, from a Craven script.
monster killing her
Craven believed that the Joseph Rubin- friends. “The real
directed Dreamscape was directly influenced problem of the script,”
by his then unmade screenplay. “Everybody he said, “and the
in the industry knew about A Nightmare on turning point in solving the story, was: if you
Elm Street three years before we made it,
because I’d talked about it... the script
have a character like that, how do you
had been submitted to every studio in eventually get to him? How do you combat
Hollywood,” the director said. “Dreamscape somebody who has such tremendous powers?
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featured a guy with claws on his fingers, a The light at the end of the tunnel was that you
kid who was frightened to go to sleep, and
must get him outside your dream and into your
the basic premise was suspiciously
coincidental. That film hurt me a lot, own world, into your territory.”
Craven had long been interested in the world
mentally and financially.”
conjured up when we sleep. Even before his
filmmaking days, he kept a dream diary, and
wrote a research paper on the subject. “The
dream world had interested me for a very long
time. In some of my earlier films [Last House,
Deadly Blessing] I’d played with dream

The young
cast don’t look
particularly
scared... yet.
sequences where you weren’t sure whether it
was a dream or not. That idea intrigued me so
much, I wanted to build a whole film around it.”
The idea of a dream killer from the
subconscious was fine, but Craven had to show
him on screen. He knew his monster from the
id would not be out-and-out evil. “Freddy is
vicious, but he has a sense of humour. He has a
humanity to him,” Craven said. “American films
especially are trapped in a very strong dualistic
nature. Within the purest hero is the potential
to be a real villain, and within any villain there
is the capacity for, or even elements of, humour,
tenderness, vulnerability, and love.”
A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET
In arming Freddy Krueger, the burned
victim of a lynch mob of outraged parents
avenging their children, Craven determined to
avoid that cliché of the slasher genre, the knife.
Scythes and sickles were tried but it wasn’t
until the third screenplay rewrite that Craven
hit upon Freddy’s trademark razor-fingered
gardening glove. As well as being unusual, and
visually echoing the razor-clawed comic-book
character Wolverine (who first appeared in
1974), the weapon had the added cinematic
advantage of suggesting all sorts of aural
possibilities, as Freddy dragged the sharp
blades along a wall or a pipe.
R EAD IES, FRED DY, G O!
As he wrote, Craven realised he had something
special in A Nightmare On Elm Street. “It was
one from the heart,” he said. “It had a good,
solid story, it was totally original, and it
worked. The finished script had a really high
success rate with studio executives who read it,
but I couldn’t get anybody to put their money
where their mouths were. That was my first
“I hope you’re indication that I was onto a winner. The second
going to was realising that I was actually able to put
pay my dry 95% of what people were reading on screen.”
cleaning bill.” Craven believed so much in his concept,
despite studio rejection, that he
did everything he could to bring
the film to fruition. “While I was
trying to get the funding, I had to
earn a living by rewriting other
people’s scripts,” Craven admitted.
“I lost all my savings and I lost my
house, which I thought would be
my ultimate investment in old
age. It’s a long, sad story, ending
with me not being able to pay bills.
I had to borrow money from
“Hang on a [friend] Sean Cunningham
minute, the [director of Friday The 13th] to pay
zip’s stuck off my taxes!”
again.” Repeatedly, Craven heard from
the studios that they couldn’t
categorise what kind of film he wanted to
make – it wasn’t a straight slasher, but neither
was it a monster movie. It wasn’t even like the
other films that he was known for. For a while
there was serious interest from an unlikely
source: Disney. Executives there thought A
Nightmare On Elm Street could be retooled as
an effective “kiddie frightener”, a toned-down
version of Craven’s visceral original.
Finally, it was tiny independent New Line
Cinema that committed to helping Craven
realise his vision, ultimately at great cost to the
writer/director. Producer Robert Shaye felt
the script was what he needed to propel his
company to the next level in Hollywood. “This
Well, at least is not a killer-on-the-loose film,” he said during
it’s fresh production. “It’s an archetypal movie monster
and high in in a dream ... This has some very unique
protein. fantasy-thriller moments.” At the time Craven
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 71
 A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET

agreed, believing A Nightmare On Elm Street

would help change the industry impression
of him. “[This] is more of a fantasy, an
impressionistic thriller. It’s really a departure
for me. I really feel this will be a landmark
film for me, my watershed film.”

L IE B AC K AN D T H I NK
O F E N G LUN D
Given the go-ahead, Craven cast his movie
largely with unknowns, many of whom went
on to much bigger things. The hardest task was
finding his monster, Freddy Krueger. When
first choice David Warner (Tron, 1982) rejected
the role, Craven turned to little-known TV star
Robert Englund. “He was the only one I
thought really had it,” said Craven. David
Miller’s burn make-up, the floppy Fedora, and
stripy jumper were the final touches in the
creation of a cinematic icon. Heather
Langenkamp came to Craven’s notice for the
role of heroine Nancy having failed to make the
cut for Francis Ford Coppola’s Rumble Fish
(1983). “I really liked her looks,” said Craven of
Langenkamp’s screen test. “She put across a
really strong image; she had to work really
hard, because she’s in nearly every scene.”
Alongside Nick Corri and Amanda Wyss as
Nancy’s pals was one actor who would really
hit the big time: 21-year-old Johnny Depp, Nokia’s new
chosen on the advice of Craven’s then-teen phone design
daughter, Jessica. “He had a quiet charisma was a little
none of the other actors really had,” said unusual.
Craven. “My daughter and her friends

absolutely flipped over him.” Craven’s one nod
to the horror genre was veteran John Saxon as
Nancy’s cop father – he’d return twice to the
Nightmare fold in third movie Dream Warriors
(1987) and Craven’s postmodern New
Nightmare (1994).
While shooting went smoothly, Craven and
Shaye clashed over the film’s climax. The canny
producer wanted to be sure of a sequel should
the first Nightmare prove a hit. Craven’s film
ended with Nancy’s defeat of Freddy – Shaye
tacked on the less-than-convincing moment in
which Freddy claims Nancy’s mother Marge
(Ronee Blakely) as a final victim.
“I felt the first film was complete in itself,”
lamented Craven. “If they wanted a sequel they
could always invent a way for things to go on.
In my version, the film ended when Nancy
turned her back on Freddy, telling him he was
nothing. It showed that evil can be confronted
It’s more of a fantasy,
an impressionistic
thriller. It’s really a
WES CRAVEN’S
and diminished, that
Nancy has become as
tough as Freddy and
OTHER NIGHTMARES was able to turn away
from him. The ending
was very carefully
Although he wisely skipped the first sequel, thought through and
Freddy’s Revenge, Craven was back aboard had to do with [my
Freddy’s nightmares for the third film, own] world view.”
Dream Warriors, which he co-scripted. The Careful mate,
film was widely seen as rescuing the
The dispute
franchise. Either side of a failed attempt to between Craven and you’ll have
create a new horror icon in the shape of Shaye led to an someone’s eye
Mitch Pileggi’s Horace Pinker in Shocker alienation that lasted out with that!
(1989), Craven burnished his reputation as
a decade. The deal
the creator of sophisticated horror with
voodoo drama The Serpent And The Craven made with
Rainbow (1988) and the politically- and New Line for A
racially-charged The People Under The Nightmare On Elm Street gave the producer
Stairs (1991). In the early ’90s, Craven made control, to the writer/director’s detriment.
peace with New Line’s Robert Shaye with
a financial settlement that recognised his
“Bob Shaye was the only person willing to back
creation of the incredibly lucrative Freddy the film and raise the money,” noted Craven.
Krueger. That led to a new, meta film, Wes “He was saying to me, ‘This is a partnership.
Craven’s New Nightmare (1994), in which Give me this one thing, a hook to hang a sequel
Craven, Langenkamp, Saxon and Englund all
played versions of themselves wrestling with
on. That and a jump at the end.’ I felt I owed
him that because he had seen the value of the
the spirit of Krueger in the real world. It was
very much a precursor to film. Sometimes you make a compromise and
ALAMY (3), GETTY (1)

Craven and Kevin years later you are sorry. On the other hand,
Williamson’s there might not have been any A Nightmare On
departure for me deconstruction of the
horror film in the
Elm Street at all if I hadn’t done that.”
four-film Scream series Craven compromised, but not all the way.
(1996-2011). Shaye wanted Freddy to drive the car that takes

72 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019

 A NIGHTMARE
ON ELM STREET

He was always
boasting about
being red hot in
the bedroom.

“Let me out,
he’s put One
Direction on
the stereo.”

Sales of baths the surviving teens away. “The end of my

plummeted compromise was that I would not have Freddy
after the film’s sitting in the front seat. I would not have him
release. driving that car.” To Craven, that imagery
signified victory for evil. Shaye eventually got
his “Freddy driving” moment in the opening of
A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge,
in which Freddy drives a school bus into the
depths of Hell.
With A Nightmare On Elm Street, Wes
Craven achieved what he’d set out to do
– produce a film from his original script that
was a commercial and critical success, and
introduce a new horror icon into the bargain.
He hoped the film’s success would allow him to
escape the horror film ghetto, but the spirit of
Freddy Krueger was set to haunt him for many
years to come...

Brian J Robb is the author of Screams &

Nightmares: The Films of Wes Craven.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 73

 Close
Encounters
FACE TO FACE WITH THE
BIGGEST STARS
PALOMA FAITH
The Pennyworth star on her Batman prequel villain and theatricality
Words by Jamie Tabberer /// Photography by Elliott Morgan
E
ccentricity and melodrama pervade Paloma
Faith’s biggest hits – and she channels a
strange, stagy absurdity again as villain Bet
Sykes in Gotham prequel show Pennyworth.
But if you’re expecting the typical pop-star-
tries-acting cartoonery, think again. Jessica
Rabbit meets Poison Ivy this ain’t.
Created by Gotham’s Bruno Heller and set in a
dystopian ’60s London, the series explores the early
life of SAS soldier-turned-security guru (and future
Wayne butler) Alfred Pennyworth. Paloma’s
murderous baddie is as emotionally complex as she
is terrifying – in part inspired by Myra Hindley.
“Bruno kept saying, ‘I don’t need to invent villains
because we have a history of great villains to draw
from in British history’,” Paloma tells SFX of Bet’s
genesis. “I watched lots of documentaries about Myra
Hindley, read articles about female serial killers…
really joyful stuff!”
Describing Pennyworth as “highly intellectual, not
your childhood comic book realisations”, Paloma says
she drew more from the “profound” late ’80s/early
’90s Batman movies (“my generation’s Batman was
Michael Keaton”) than the DC Universe as a whole.
While preparing, were you tempted – or instructed – to
immerse yourself in Batman’s 80-year history?
No. Bruno Heller told me to research Hindley as opposed
to the original comics, because they’re all set in America.
That set Bet apart from my experience of comic book
female villains. There’s more to her than her sexuality, in
terms of instilling fear, having power. When you look at the
portrayal of women as villains in these [stories], they’re
highly sexed. The fear arises from men, about the fact
they’re unattainable but desirable. What we were going for
was a complex character that could be played by a male or
a female. There are moments you think, “This woman’s
insane”, and moments when you’re like, “I really relate to
her, and understand why she wants to kill that guy!”
How did you get into character?
It was quick for me. The writing speaks for itself. Bruno’s
brilliant. He wrote as we were filming; every time we
finished an episode, we wouldn’t know what was going to
happen. We’d ask him and he wouldn’t know! Over time,
this character evolved and, by the end, became a hybrid of
74 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
BIODATA me and the person I was being. There’s a line where I say,
“I’m restless, I’m a caged animal!” And I just knew… It’s
From
London, England literally the sort of thing I say in life! I think he probably
just pinched it out of a conversation!
Greatest Hits
St Trinian’s,
The Imaginarium
What’s your most fun on-set memory?
Of Doctor Sitting in the back of a car with Jason Flemyng and Polly
Parnassus, “Only Walker filming a getaway. I’d baked cookies – me proving
Love Can Hurt
Like This”,
cookies can be healthy: gluten/dairy/everything-free, but
“Picking Up obviously still bad for you! We were sat eating them, being
The Pieces”, juveniles, asking each other truth or dare-type questions!
“Changing”
Random Fact Do you want to do 50/50 acting and singing?
Before scoring This was a job I’ve been waiting for. It’s a challenge that
three double isn’t just putting on a costume and being myself. People
platinum albums
in the UK as a
who’ve seen Pennyworth and know me say my whole
singer, Faith physicality changes: my face, the way I speak. I’ve never
worked as a really demonstrated that I’m capable of that to the outside
bartender,
a magician’s
world before. It’s been great to show people I’m not just a
assistant and pop star trying to take as many opportunities as I can. I’m
life model. serious about it. So I don’t know about 50/50. At some point
I’d like 80/20, other times 20/80! It depends. I’m lucky that
I don’t have to be a jobbing actor who takes any role because
I’ve got rent to pay. I can afford to only do the things I want.
You’re a theatrical performer – does that influence the
roles you’re drawn to?
I think everything’s theatre. When I did my Masters in
set design and scenography [at London’s Central Saint
Martins], I read a lot of Antonin Artaud. The Theatre And Its
Double is his famous book. It’s all about everybody playing
a role in life. You adopt stereotypes and nuances based on
social, predestined ideas of what you’d behave like. I’m a
theatrical person per se. I react passionately to everything.
Are you prepared for the fandom Batman brings?
I want to wait and see. Never say never. We don’t know
how popular the show’s going to be yet. At this point, I’m
just hoping people like it and they make a series two.
What TV and film roles would you like next, and why?
I’d love to be in The Handmaid’s Tale. I studied it at A-
level. The directing and writing’s impeccable. Same for
Euphoria. If they do Fleabag series three, I want to be in it!
Pennyworth is streaming now on StarzPlay.
 CLOSE ENCOUNTERS
PALOMA FAITH

Pennyworth
was a job I’ve
been waiting for.
It’s great to show
people I’m not
just a pop star

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 75

 THE STORY BEHIND THE SF AND
FANTASY OF YESTERYEAR
1969-1972; 1974

FIFTY YEARS ON FROM THEIR FIRST APPEARANCE,

WE SPEAK WITH DAN POSTGATE, SON OF
CLANGERS CREATOR OLIVER
WORDS: PAUL COCKBURN
ALL PICTURES © OLIVER POSTGATE/PETER FERMIN/SMALL FILMS/DAN POSTGATE

76 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


HAT IS THE SECRET OF
the blue star with metal
covers on it?” This was the
strange question with which
viewers of BBC1 – or at least
those who read Radio Times – were introduced
to a strange and beguiling new alien world.
Clangers itself was thankfully somewhat
more forthcoming. It began with an image of
planet Earth, a common enough sight in those
days of the Apollo space programme. This, we
were told, was “our home”. “But supposing we
look away from the Earth and travel, in our
imagination, across the vast, starry stretches of
outer space?” It was the voice of writer and
animator Oliver Postgate, already familiar to at
least one generation of young viewers thanks to
children’s favourites like Pogles’ Wood, Noggin
The Nog and Ivor The Engine. “Then we can
imagine other stars, stranger stars by far than
ever shone in our night sky. And planets too.”
Focusing on a small blue world covered in
capped craters, Postgate continued: “This calm
serene orb, sailing majestically among the
ALAMY (1)
myriad stars of the firmament. Perhaps this star
too is home for somebody? Can we imagine the
sort of people who live on a star like this? Let
us go very close, let us look and listen very
carefully, and perhaps we shall see and hear?”
We did, of course. Perhaps it wasn’t quite as
historic a moment as when Daleks first glided
into view on Doctor Who but, nevertheless,
something special arguably happened on
Sunday, 16 November 1969 when we first saw
the Clangers waddle onto our screens. Not least
because the curiously endearing, long-nosed,
mouse-like creatures were clearly… knitted.
A NEW F RO NTIE R
Clangers was the latest series produced by
Smallfilms, a company established a decade
earlier by Postgate and his long-term
collaborator, the artist and model-maker Peter
Firmin. While they had long become trusted as
a safe pair of hands in children’s television,
Clangers, in some respects, was a gear-change.
“Up until then, all the Smallfilms shows were
quite pastoral, and looked into the past rather
TIME MACHINE:
CLANGERS
than the future,” says Dan Postgate, son of
Oliver and current owner of Smallfilms. “So
Clangers was a bit of a departure for them.”
He says the initial inspiration for this new
approach was the arrival of colour broadcasting
on BBC1: “The BBC said to them that they
wanted something that was snazzy and
interesting and colourful, and sort of modern.
“Ironically, where they went to for their
inspiration was their own Noggin The Nog,”
continues Dan, referring to the popular
adventures of a kind and unassuming King of
the Northmen, set during Viking times, which
the BBC had originally shown between 1959
and 1965. “There was a book they did called
Noggin And The Moon Mouse, which was about
this pod that lands in the horse’s trough in the
centre of the village. Out climbs this mouse in
a duffle coat and with a tail… and my dad sort
of started to think – where did this mouse
come from? What sort of lifestyle would it
have? That sparked him off.”
Another valuable source of inspiration was
a conversation Oliver Postgate had enjoyed
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 77
 TIME MACHINE:
CLANGERS

“VOTE FOR
FROGLET”
Clangers gets political
Oliver Postgate didn’t consider himself
“party political” but in 1974 he was
sufficiently exasperated by the state of
British politics to deliver a “Non-Party
Political Broadcast On Behalf Of The Poor
Bloody Electors” on BBC Radio 4’s
Women’s Hour.
Then, during the run-up to 1974’s second
general election, he pitched the BBC a
one-off episode of Clangers, mocking “the
absurdities of political engineering”.
Completed in just three days, “Vote for
Froglet!” was broadcast on election day,
10 October 1974, and never repeated.
Postgate described it as “a pleasant little
morality play, but not something that
would bring the world to its senses”.

Turns out the

moon landings
were faked
after all.

several years earlier with his then-three-year- As with their previous

old twin sons Simon and Stephen. In his
memoir Seeing Things (originally published
in 2000) Oliver explained: “Apparently there
was a giant called Edward on the other side
of the Moon who lived on soup – hot soup.
I asked how he obtained the soup and they
explained that as the Moon was quite full of
soup, all he had to do was unscrew a volcano
and suck it out through a straw. I mentioned
that I thought the other side of the Moon was
thought to be very, very cold, and they pointed
out that the soup was very, very hot. That was
all useful information.”
Thinking about that Moon Mouse, Oliver
reasoned: “It was unlikely that the visitor
would have come from our Moon because
Edward lived there, but there were other
moons about and there was no reason why
they shouldn’t contain suitable soup. Also,
because nowadays there was so much
space-programme debris whizzing about in
the sky, they were unlikely to be living on the
outside of their moon. They had probably taken
to living in caves. The entrances to the caves
would have metal covers over them and when
they came out the covers would tip over and
clang open like dustbin lids.”
Which, of course, was how he and Peter
eventually settled on their name: Clangers.
series, Clangers was
filmed in a partially-
restored 17th century
barn on Peter’s farm,
some three miles outside
of Canterbury. Dan was
just five years old at the
time, but still vividly
remembers his father
working there.
“It was near my
primary school, so I’d quite often stop off,” he fall onto the planet. Must have been quite
says. “For a small child it was a really quite a surreal sight; these hairless birds, ugly little
magical place; you’d look up into the roof and creatures probably.”
see those ancient old beams. It was a quite As previously, the sets, props and many of
scary kind of place too. For quite a while Peter the characters were designed and built by
put the Pogle Witch on one of the ancient Peter, although his wife Joan knitted all the
beams, looking down with her beady eyes, and Clangers. They faced other dangers in the barn,
it was terrifying – no wonder the BBC had however. “The mice would get up and nibble
banned the Pogle Witch!” the Soup Dragon’s fingers during the night!”
The Pogle Witch wasn’t the only occupant reveals Dan.
in the rafters, however. “There were swallows
nesting in the barn,” says Dan. “When he came ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES
in in the morning, Oliver would often have to While not particularly a science fiction fan
clean off the swallow poo from the Clangers’ – beyond having read HG Wells – Oliver
planet surface. Also, the swallows had babies; recognised the potential story opportunities
they’d fall out of the nests and land on the Clangers offered. “In space anything could
planet’s surface. Peter made some hammocks exist and anything could happen,” he
to catch them, but they’d often miss and still explained in Seeing Things. “Even so, I knew

78 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019


MIND YOUR
LANGUAGE
In space no one can
hear you swear
Peter Firmin was busy building sets for
Clangers when Oliver Postgate was
suddenly asked in by a concerned BBC
to discuss his scripts – specifically, their
bad language.
One episode began with Major Clanger
trying to open the sliding doors to the
main cave. When they jam, the scripted
line was: “Oh, sod it! The bloody thing’s
stuck again!”
Postgate reminded the BBC executive
that the dialogue was whistled, not spoken,
so could be assumed to be: “Oh dear me.
The naughty thing is jammed again.”
According to Oliver, he was sent on his
way, albeit instructed to “keep the
language moderate”.
“Don’t forget
to buy some
bog roll on your
way back.”
(Clockwise from top left)
Froglets, Soup Dragon,
Granny Clanger, Small
Clanger, Mother Clanger.
that home life was home life wherever it was
– even when it was being confused and
assaulted by the unlikely.”
Dan agrees: “When considering bringing
back one of the shows, I thought Clangers
would be a good one to do because they can
always be visited by other space visitors – so
there was a great scope for new episodes.”
Co-creator Peter, who died in 2018, was also
keen to breathe new life into the creatures.
“Although he was supposed to be retired, he
didn’t really retire,” says Dan. “He was quite
happy to do the designs for the new series, and
go up to Manchester to see what the
production team were up to.”
Despite its
futuristic trappings,
Dan believes Clangers Oliver would often
sits firmly among the
shows that Smallfilms
have to clean off bird
had produced poo from the Clangers’
previously. “Their
work wasn’t old
planet surface
fashioned as such, but
it was looking to the pastoral values of the
past,” he says. “They kind of retained that with
Clangers; it’s got that nice mixture of being
modern and sort of whimsical. A lot of my dad’s
and Peter’s stuff is very much in the tradition of
British whimsy.”
One admittedly whimsical idea was Oliver’s
original intention for the Clangers’ whistled
dialogue to carry the stories alone. “Oliver
quite liked the idea of it not being narrated,
but the BBC decided that it probably needed
TIME MACHINE:
CLANGERS
a bit,” reveals Dan. “But he remained an
observer, rather than a narrator – that’s
something I’ve been quite keen to keep in
the new series.”
Oliver described filming Clangers as “the
most challenging, absorbing and difficult work
I had ever undertaken” but also something he
found “immensely satisfying”. Nevertheless,
after two seasons it was time for something
else. That, it turned out, was Bagpuss.
“They were a bit niggly with each other, like
a married couple sometimes,” says Dan of his
father and Peter. “But they got along alright,
because they had separate things to get on
with. Oliver was writing and thinking the
stories up, and Peter was making the puppets
and everything else. Oliver was always deeply
impressed by Peter’s creative abilities, and
Peter was impressed with Oliver’s.”
Unusually, the two men were equally
involved in the
numerous books,
weekly comic strips
and annuals that were
based on their
programmes. Indeed,
Dan feels these were
equally important to
both men – and not
just in terms of income.
“Oliver most enjoyed writing stories, really,”
says Dan. “Everything revolved around the
stories; he’d have the stories and the best ways
to present them. The annuals were just as
important to him as making the films. Probably
a bit of a blessed relief, sometimes, because he
didn’t have to animate them!”
The original Clangers TV series are available
on DVD.
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 79
 Brought
LEIGH BARDUGO
Checking her privilege: the US writer discusses her first adult novel
Words by Jonathan Wright /// Photography by Jen Castle
E
VEN THE MOST SUCCESSFUL NOVELISTS CAN
find themselves filled with angst. For proof, just ask
Leigh Bardugo if she’s good at living in the moment.
“Absolutely not!” she retorts. “I live in a permanent
state of terror. I always just envision myself rolling
around in a ditch of self-doubt. No, I’m terrible at
that. I think that writers are inherently constantly
projecting narratives. It’s part of our job, and inevitably
many of those narratives lead to disaster.”
Such personal narratives can be especially troubling when
there’s a particular sense of risk about starting a new project.
At which point we should mention that Bardugo’s Ninth
House is her first book for adults, one she “had to fight for
time to write” because she had contracts to pen YA novels.
GALAXY QUEST
Was it worth making the time? Well, Stephen King rates it
as “the best fantasy novel I’ve read in years”, and this really
isn’t a case of a fellow writer being polite. It’s a wonderfully
visceral campus chiller-cum-urban fantasy full of, in
Bardugo’s words, “jokes and friendship and bonkers magic”,
but “blood and trauma and revenge” too.
At its centre is Galaxy Stern who, perhaps unsurprisingly,
prefers to use the first name Alex. She’s in her first year at
Yale, yet she’s no overachiever. Just the opposite: Alex is a
high school dropout with a history of drug abuse, someone
who worked minimum-wage jobs, and the sole survivor of
an unsolved multiple homicide.
But Alex has an ace card: she can see ghosts, or “Grays”.
In Bardugo’s take on Yale, members of its secret societies,
which in reality offer networking opportunities and blue-
blood drinking clubs, have a fascination with the occult.
This was a way for Bardugo to raise the stakes for Alex so
that she wasn’t just writing about a privileged scholar.
“I wanted to create a situation where Alex was somebody
who’d run out of chances, and who’s surrounded by people
who burn through second chances,” she says. “And there’s a
sense in which she’s looking well beyond what many people
go to college for. She’s a survivor. She understands that this
environment is going to give her the chance to potentially
care for herself, care for her mother, get by in a world that
she didn’t think she was going to be able to get by in.”
In part, it’s a book based on Bardugo’s own experiences.
She did attend Yale, and she was a member of one of its
“ancient eight” secret societies, which she found “an
extremely positive experience”. And, while we shouldn’t
80 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
THE SFX AUTHOR
INTERVIEW
To Book
BIODATA mix up author and heroine, Bardugo does identify to some
From
extent with Alex.
Born in Israel, “One of the deepest associations I have with her is that
raised in Los she’s somebody who has been left vulnerable by her lack of
Angeles roots,” says Bardugo. “She is not connected to religion. She’s
Greatest Hits not connected to culture. She’s been left adrift. So it’s not
Bardugo has sold only this unique gift she has that’s isolated her, it’s that she
two million doesn’t have some of the resources that might otherwise
books. Her
Grisha trilogy
have protected her. Her journey is largely about creating a
and Six Of Crows network of threads that stabilise her through friendship;
duology, both through connection that she’s been afraid of making before.”
set in her
Grishaverse, are
currently being OV E R D O N E U N D E R D O G S
filmed by Netflix. Bardugo has in the past talked about her own tough times
growing up and, later in life, depression, yet she’s wary of
Random Fact
The secret making too much of this. We’re often good at seeing
societies at Yale privilege in others’ lives, she says, without acknowledging
are based in moments when we got a helping hand. We need to treat
what are
essentially
“the power of the narrative of the underdog” with caution.
clubhouses “I wrote my second book living out of a suitcase,” she
called “tombs”, says. “That sounds appropriately dramatic, except that I
most of which
are windowless.
was able to move into my mother’s house. She owned her
home. I didn’t have to worry about being out on the street, I
was able to borrow money from her in order to leave my ex.
Those are kinds of privilege that we don’t talk about as
candidly because we don’t want to appear to be the people
who are benefiting from advantage.”
That book was Siege And Storm (2013), the second part of
her Grisha trilogy. The trilogy and her subsequent books
have been bestsellers. Easy success then? In fact, her debut
Shadow And Bone (2012) wasn’t published until she was 37.
“I had many terrible jobs before that,” she says. “And I
think one of the worst things we can do is create this myth
that somehow if you don’t write the book right out of
college or if you aren’t some kind of wunderkind, that your
story is any less interesting.” Her worst job? Being a “beer
girl” who had “to lug around, in the heat of a New York
summer, a huge bag full of beer and marketing material”.
No wonder she values her success – although she warns
against the idea of always looking upwards to the next rung.
That way lies neurosis. Better to marvel at the idea that
people she doesn’t personally know read her books. “It still
feels quite miraculous to me, this alchemy that happens
when a book passes from the author to the readers.”
Ninth House is available to buy now, published by Gollancz.
 BROUGHT TO BOOK
LEIGH BARDUGO

It’s miraculous
– the alchemy
when a book
passes from the
author to
the readers

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 81

 DEC
2019
edited by Ian Berriman

CINEMA 84 TV 90 HOME ENTERTAINMENT 92 BOOKS 100 COMICS 108 GAMES & STUFF 110

84
TERMINATOR:
DARK FATE
That Hamilton
Woman

THIS ISSUE

58 REVIEWS

90
WATCHMEN
92
SPIDER-MAN:
100
THE PURSUIT
Lost’s Damon FAR FROM OF WILLIAM
Lindelof brings the HOME ABBEY
classic Alan Moore Spidey hits Venice, A colonial doctor is
comic to TV. Bet he’s Prague, London... and tracked by a ghost in
not happy... shiny disc. Claire North’s latest.

RATINGS EXPLAINED SUPERB GOOD AVERAGE POOR TERRIBLE

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 83

 CINEMA
TERMINATOR:
DARK FATE
I’ll be back to basics
RELEASED OUT NOW!
15 | 128 minutes
Director Tim Miller
Cast Linda Hamilton, Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Mackenzie Davis,
Natalia Reyes, Gabriel Luna
There are countless ways to
reboot a moribund franchise and
the Terminator series appears
determined to try out every single
one. The latest approach is one
that was also favoured by The
Force Awakens: remake the original
with a few minor adjustments and
hope nobody notices.
There’s one key reason, though,
to be excited by this particular
attempt at cinematic CPR, as this
is the first time since Judgment
Day that Terminator’s creator
James Cameron has been involved
in the franchise – he’s helped to
draft the storyline. This probably
explains the back to basics
approach after the big screen
fanfic of Salvation and Genisys,
films that forgot the core appeal of
the early Terminator films: an epic
pursuit involving a relentless,
84 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
indestructible assassin. That’s
back, big time, in Dark Fate.
The film is designed as a direct
sequel to Terminator 2: Judgment
Day and consigns all continuity
from any movies (and, indeed TV
series) in-between to a parallel
timeline. Not that it politely
suggests such an explanation; it
simply ignores them all. If you’re
anal about such things Dark Fate
does allow for a parallel timeline
explanation if you want one.
It opens with some powerful
footage of Sarah Connor shot for
T2, showing her ranting away in
the mental institution, before
leaping forward in time to a brief
moment of happiness for Sarah
and son John Connor in the period
after they’d prevented Skynet from
coming online and creating the
post-apocalyptic future of the
Terminators. That’s when the
film’s first major twist happens –
one that will possibly make you go
“Huh?” rather than “WTF?”. From Tempers began
there on it’s difficult to go into to fray at the
much detail about the plot without Christmas sales.
spoiling the main things that keep
it interesting: the moments when the story doesn’t quite pan out as
you were expecting. And you need It fails to
to cherish these moments, because
in terms of the overall plot take the
structure the film goes exactly
where you’re expecting. series to a
Without giving too much away,
then, the main bulk of the film is
set 27 years after the events of
new level
Judgment Day, and centres on a Connor’s radar. There’s a lot of
feisty Mexican car factory worker, new mythology in the details
Dani Ramos (Natalia Reyes), who (much of it revealed in some
becomes a target for yet another impressive flashbacks to the new
upgraded liquid metal Terminator future that’s been created) but
“We’re keeping your from the future. Also on her trail is essentially this is yet another
snooker cue and you a cyborg called Grace, and pretty chase movie punctuated with
can’t have it!” soon all three show up on Sarah spectacular action sequences.

The result is a solid enough film,
with many elements that work
successfully, but one that never
grabs you and makes you think
you’re seeing something you’ve
never seen before in the way that
the first two Terminators did. It’s
certainly not an embarrassment to
the franchise like Salvation and
Genisys, but neither does it take
the series to a new level.
The way the film uses Linda
Hamilton and Arnie is especially
impressive, letting them grow old
gracefully while giving their
characters – Sarah and the latest
twist on the T-800 – some real
meat. Reyes also impresses as the
sassy Dani, who proves that even if
you can’t kick Terminator ass,
intelligence can be a weapon too.
Mackenzie Davis’s cybernetic
Grace can kick Terminator ass,
and does so often and impressively,
though she has more relevance to
the plot than as mere muscle.
Gabriel Luna’s evil Terminator
fares less well. While he does have
his own unique schtick, it’s not
enough, and he ends up feeling too
much like Robert Patrick’s T-1000
take two, just with a Venom
makeover to the liquid metal. The
action sequences, while decent
enough, also never produce any
iconic wow moments, which is a
surprise considering director Tim
Miller’s Deadpool movies are full
of memorable effects stunts. And
occasionally the digital stunt
doubles are surprisingly cartoony
for such a big-budget movie.
At least the tone is right. Dark Fate
is funny in places – and Arnie has
some cracking one-liners – but it
feels like an authentic sequel to
The Terminator and Judgment
Day. At last. Dave Golder
One actor from Terminator: Genysis makes
a return – Brett Azar as Arnie’s body
double for the “young” T800 scenes.
MIND
PROBE
GABRIEL
LUNA
The Rev-9 in
Terminator: Dark Fate
How did you get into the
Terminator mindset?
What’s really terrifying
is the indifference, just
to look at these human
lifeforms and visualise
them as insignificant ants.
It’s kind of a crazy concept
to carry in your mind at all
times, especially when
you’re dealing with people
that you really love as
co-stars and friends!
Everybody’s a badass.
Was there competition?
Me and Mackenzie had
the most competitive
relationship when it came
to training. We’d size each
other up and say, “Oh, you
look good there…” They
came out as compliments
but we could see in each
other’s eyes they were
assessments, benchmarks
for what we were going to
do to get ahead.
How big a presence was
James Cameron?
He was very active – it
was his baby, and the
whole point of making this
film is to make one that is
in alignment with his
original vision and carry it
forward. Sometimes we’d
get there on the day and
realise the script had to be
adjusted in certain ways,
and he was always good
about trying to get those
adjustments made. He’s
Jim Cameron, man! The
GETTY (1)
treasure trove’s in his brain.
You just go to him and
unlock it. Nick Setchfield
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 85
 CINEMA
DOCTOR SLEEP
Redo rum
RELEASED OUT NOW!
15 | 152 minutes
Director Mike Flanagan
Cast Ewan McGregor, Rebecca
Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, Carl Lumbly
Stephen King famously
loathes Stanley Kubrick’s film of
The Shining, and understandably
so. He’s right when he says that
Jack Nicholson’s take on Jack
Torrance, the unravelling
caretaker of the Overlook Hotel,
seems unhinged from the get-go.
He also has a point when he claims
that Kubrick observes an icy
detachment from his characters.
The fact that he’s happy with
this adaptation of his 2013
novel tells you it’s a rather
different kind of movie: a warmer
one, which doesn’t skimp on
establishing character.
86 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
Writer/director Mike Flanagan
approaches King’s sequel
respectfully: a couple of characters
have been trimmed, an identity
twist that wouldn’t play on-screen
dropped, events slightly
telescoped, a few edges softened...
but most of the key story beats are
present and correct. And when
Flanagan does make significant
changes, he does so with what will
make the author happy at the
forefront of his mind. The result
is a film that synthesises very
different takes on the source
Doesn’t
skimp on
establishing
character
At least you could
tell when the
bathroom was
occupied.
material, applying a patch to what
King would view as glitches.
King’s central new idea, that the
psychic powers of people like Dan
Torrance (Ewan McGregor) – now
a recovering-alcoholic
40-something who uses his gifts
working in a hospice – can be
extracted, via torture, in a gaseous
form, seems a little goofy. Swallow
that, however, and Dan’s struggle
to protect Abra Stone (Kyliegh
Curran) – a tween whose abilities
dwarf his own – from the True
Knot, a cult led by Rebecca
Ferguson’s ruthless Rose the Hat
(for whom the girl represents an
eternal youth-bestowing
all-you-can-eat buffet) is pretty
gripping, despite the extended run
time. Flanagan’s team pull off the
challenge of conveying passages
where Abra and Rose pay one
another psychic visits with aplomb
– though they fail at showing the
rejuvenative effects of “Steam”.
It’s when the film takes a
final-act detour that things get a
little indigestible. In the books, the
Overlook was destroyed. Here, it’s
still standing. The recreation of
Kubrick’s sets is impressive, but
even accounting for the fact that
the hotel is essentially a living
thing, its only subtly degraded
condition stretches credulity.
(Seriously, no one pinched that
typewriter?!) The script also
struggles to provide a strong
motivation for the trip, practically
mumbling “Because”.
The use of familiar figures
presents a further problem.
Revisiting an iconic space is one
thing. Doctor Sleep goes much
further, and at times may give you
the uncomfortable feeling that
you’re watching the acting
equivalent of Stars In Their Eyes.
As a result, a film that begins with
a solid sense of its own distinct
identity ends up feeling a little like
The Shining karaoke. Ian Berriman
King’s book was party inspired by a TV
news piece about a hospice cat who’d curl
up on the beds of people about to die.
COUNTDOWN
RELEASED OUT NOW!
15 | 90 minutes
Director Justin Dec
Cast Elizabeth Lail, Jordan
Calloway, Talitha Eliana Bateman,
Peter Facinelli
If you could find out exactly
when you’re going to die, would
you want to know?
That’s the question posed by
smartphone-centric horror
Countdown. Quinn (You’s
Elizabeth Lail) is a newly
minted nurse whose patient
dies gruesomely exactly when
a creepy app said he would.
Curious, Quinn downloads
Countdown too – and discovers
her time’s up in three days.
The ticking clock here recalls
The Ring, while the idea that
you can’t cheat death is very
Final Destination. But despite
a couple of cheeky references
(“room 237”), Countdown is
very of-the-moment, with its
demonic app and more than
a passing nod to #MeToo.
Structurally, too, it feels
familiar, with every beat
(consult a hacker! Do a ritual!)
arriving on cue. But writer/
director Justin Dec is genre
savvy enough to swerve the
clichés. His characters are
quirky without being annoying,
and they don’t make the usual
stupid mistakes. Forget
stumbling into danger: Quinn
figures out the rules and fights
back, even when that involves
choices that’d get her removed
from the final girls’ group chat.
Though it tackles big themes,
Countdown won’t make you feel
clever – it’s just trying to scare
you. And if the jump scares
don’t get you, the existential
dread it provokes will. Would
you download that app? Who
could resist? Brrr. Sarah Dobbs
 CINEMA
Now is the
perfect time of
year to plant
your zombies.
GEMINI MAN
Where there’s two Wills...
RELEASED OUT NOW!
12A | 117 minutes
Director Ang Lee
Cast Will Smith, Mary Elizabeth
Winstead, Clive Owen, Benedict Wong
Thanks to a series of big-
budget flops, Will Smith hasn’t
had much cinematic cachet of late.
That might explain his decision to
headline this uncomfortably dated
sci-fi, which not only seems to
have time-hopped straight out of
the ’90s but even digitally turns
back the clock to give us a younger,
leaner Fresh Prince (a decent CGI
creation from Weta).
It’s a nifty, though timeworn,
concept (see also Looper, The 6th
Day and others), and one that
director Ang Lee gives an
adrenaline boost early on as ageing
government assassin Henry
88 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
Brogan (Old Will) is targeted
by a terrifyingly efficient clone
(Digi Will). But after an impressive
bike chase through Colombia’s
Cartagena, Gemini Man digs out its
slippers and settles into the kind
of location-jumping spy-movie
format you’ve seen a hundred
times before, done much better.
At every turn, the film’s origins
as a 1997 vehicle for director Tony
Scott make themselves known. He
eventually opted not to make it,
and the script barely seems to have
been dusted off since. Clive Owen
growls interminably as a paper-
thin villain and Mary Elizabeth
Dated sci-fi
straight out
of the ’90s
LITTLE MONSTERS
Teacher vs zombies
RELEASED 15 NOVEMBER
15 | 94 minutes
Director Abe Forsythe
Cast Lupita Nyong’o, Alexander
England, Josh Gad, Kat Stewart
When a zombie horde attacks,
your greatest weapon might just
be a positive attitude and a
working knowledge of Taylor
Swift’s back catalogue.
This good-natured and funny
indie from Aussie director Abe
Forsythe plays like an undead Life
Is Beautiful. The least interesting
thing about Little Monsters is the
infected. It’s a character comedy
which sees ray of sunshine Miss
Caroline (Lupita Nyong’o –
brilliant, and having loads of fun)
trying to convince the kindergarten
class she’s taken to a petting zoo
that the bloodthirsty masses
Winstead’s hitwoman ally is forced
to tail Brogan around the world,
chewing on excruciating will-they-
won’t-they dire-logue.
Odd, too, that Lee shot his
nostalgic throwback at 120fps,
which merely heightens the sense
that Gemini Man has nowhere to
hide, its every contrivance exposed
in blinding hi-def. So while it often
dazzles visually, Gemini Man can’t
descending upon them are just
part of a fun game. Trapped
with them are foul-mouthed,
sociopathic kids’ entertainer
Teddy McGiggle (Josh Gad) and
all-round waster Dave (Alexander
England), who only offered to
help out on the trip to be close to
Miss Caroline. Cute animals and
even cuter kids are juxtaposed
nicely with the gore, carnage and
the abhorrent McGiggle for
consistent laughs.
Nyong’o is the standout but the
story is Dave’s arc, and England is
charismatic enough to pull it off.
So while the comedy kills and
horror nods are very generic, the
film is so upbeat and uplifting, any
sense of zombie fatigue... well, you
can just shake it off. Rosie Fletcher
To bag the rights to “Shake It Off”, Lupita
Nyong’o approached Taylor Swift directly
and explained how it fitted in the movie.
Young Will had
just learnt about
Suicide Squad.
escape its own obsolescence. Even
Big Willie upstages himself, his
younger version proving more
dynamic and engaging than the
non-CGI character, which is sort
of backwards, given that the film
often feels like a pale imitation of a
much better original. Josh Winning
Over its 20 years in development hell,
Harrison Ford, Arnie and Sylvester Stallone
all considered starring in the film.
MALEFICENT:
MISTRESS OF EVIL
RELEASED OUT NOW!
PG | 119 minutes
Director Joachim Rønning
Cast Angelina Jolie, Elle Fanning,
Sam Riley, Michelle Pfeiffer
2014’s Maleficent was a
surprisingly original retelling
of Sleeping Beauty with an
excellent performance from
Angelina Jolie in the role of the
fairy godmother responsible for
cursing that pesky spinning
wheel. Sadly, this sequel, while
retaining Jolie’s fabulous
creation, is an overblown and
bloated disappointment.
This time around Elle
Fanning’s drippy Princess
Aurora wants to marry her
equally drippy Prince, but his
mother – an icy Michelle
Pfeiffer – wants all the
supernatural creatures in
Aurora’s forest home dead, and
therefore has an Evil Plot up
her sleeve. There’s a rather
wonderful scene in which
Maleficent shares a meal with
Pfeiffer’s Queen and the air
positively crackles with a
promised Battle of the Campy
Bitches... but then the rest of
the film becomes so swept up in
spending obscene amounts on
CGI creatures, landscapes and,
most impressively, wings (so
many wings) that this fun,
campy drama is forgotten.
Mistress Of Evil’s biggest
crime is that Maleficent herself
isn’t on-screen nearly enough.
But the movie also suffers from
a final-act battle that goes on
forever and it ricochets so
quickly from deaths in battle to
gooey schmaltz that it doesn’t
make sense. Less a “happy ever
after” than a “why do we care?”
Jayne Nelson
ZOMBIELAND:
DOUBLE TAP
RELEASED OUT NOW!
15 | 99 minutes
Director Ruben Fleischer
Cast Emma Stone, Woody Harrelson,
Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin
Zombies shambled to the
centre of the horror genre a few
years ago (around the time
2009’s Zombieland arrived on
cinema screens), but while
they’re still hanging around,
they’ve certainly seen their
power decay. Which makes
Double Tap’s return visit to the
post-apocalyptic world of Jesse
Eisenberg’s Columbus, Woody
Harrelson’s Tallahassee, Emma
Stone’s Wichita and Abigail
Breslin’s Little Rock all the
riskier: do we still want to
spend time with these people,
and is the zom-com still a field
with fresh corners left to
explore? The answer to the first
is a definite yes, and the latter is
more dependent on your
feelings towards both the first
film and slaying the undead.
The cast remains a delight,
swapping zingers as the
dysfunctional found family
takes residence in the
abandoned White House years
after their first encounter. The
brain-munchers have begun to
evolve and there are some new
humans to meet (Zoey Deutch
is a goofy addition, while Luke
Wilson and Thomas Middleditch
also work well). But for the
most part, the pleasure of the
sequel is returning writers Paul
Wernick and Rhett Reese and
director Ruben Fleischer
expanding the world while also
bringing us more of what made
the original film work. Some
finale clichés aside, Double Tap
delivers the goods. Jim Blakey
JUDY & PUNCH
RELEASED 15 NOVEMBER
15 | 106 minutes
Director Mirrah Foulkes
Cast Mia Wasikowska, Damon
Herriman, Benedict Hardie
Forget what you know
about Punch and Judy. This
stylish and occasionally
shocking debut feature from
director Mirrah Foulkes upends
the story of the bickering
puppet show to create an
incandescent treatise on
misogyny and prejudice; one
that is midnight dark and
streaked with a deliciously
macabre sense of humour.
Set in the 17th century in
the remote town of Seaside
(“nowhere near the sea”, notes
a droll opening line), Judy &
Punch reimagines its titular
characters (played by a
never-better Mia Wasikowska
and Damon Herriman) as
puppeteers struggling to make
ends meet. After a jaw-
droppingly bleak twist, the pair
come to loggerheads in more
ways than one, with the entire
village swept up in their wake
– we’ll refrain from spoiling
what is essentially a grim fable
brimming with evil deeds,
razor-sharp wit and
uncomfortable tragedy.
Foulkes has clear objectives,
her script taking in alleged
witches who are stoned for
entertainment and Judy
bemoaning how “punchy and
smashy” the pair’s show has
become. Although the third-act
sermonising is as heavy-handed
as one of Punch’s blows, the
director earns the moment after
weaving an evocative tale that
takes some brilliant risks. The
result is a truly feminist fable
that revels in its own wicked
whimsy. Josh Winning
THE ADDAMS
FAMILY
RELEASED OUT NOW!
PG | 105 minutes
Directors Conrad Vernon,
Greg Tiernan
Cast Oscar Isaac, Charlize Theron,
Chloë Grace Moretz, Finn Wolfhard
The Addams Family’s
return to the screen is a creepy,
kooky, mysterious, spooky and
all-together un-ooky computer-
animated comedy that
functions both as a homage to
Charles Addams’s original 1938
comic strip, and an introduction
for a new generation.
True to form, the story is
fuelled by a clash of tastes and
values, with the Addams’s move
to a gloomy mansion in New
Jersey provoking the ire of
reality TV host Margaux
Needler (Allison Janney). She’s
redecorating the subtly-named
nearby town of Assimilation,
and the Addams’s penchant
for black and bats are ruining
her vision.
The fun, as always, is in the
Addams themselves, whose
voice cast include Oscar Isaac
(Gomez), Charlize Theron
(Morticia) and a ludicrous
cameo from Snoop Dogg as
Cousin Itt. The best gags come
from their inversion of norms,
such as Lurch “dusting” by
blasting the house with dust,
or Thing (a hand) using the
internet to look at pictures of
feet – a joke reminiscent of
co-directors Conrad Vernon and
Greg Tiernan’s work on lewd
2016 comedy Sausage Party.
This doesn’t mean that the
gag rate is perfect, or that it
comes close to Pixar’s best, but
for both children and adults
alike The Addams Family is far
from torture. Stephen Kelly
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 89
 TV
WATCHMEN Season One
No-Moore Heroes
UK Sky Atlantic, Mondays
US HBO, Sundays
Showrunner Damon Lindelof
Cast Regina King, Tim Blake Nelson,
Jeremy Irons, Jean Smart
This Watchmen
EPISODES 1.01-1.06
series, a sequel set 30 years after
the original, really shouldn’t exist.
Its inspiration is a comic where
form matches content so
completely that even Zack
Snyder’s almost shot-for-shot
adaptation failed to capture the
mysterious magic at the heart of
wizard Alan Moore’s masterwork.
Watchmen was a comic about
comics, with genius structuring
(mirroring, frame blending, unique
panel rhythm), specific to the
medium, that elevated trash
culture into art (it’s the only comic
on Time’s 100 greatest novels list).
90 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
Moore knew the film was
pointless, removing his name
from the project. The same has
happened here, and a generation
of HBO-heads are going to think
artist Dave Gibbons created the
whole enterprise. Good for
Gibbons, because this Watchmen
is a masterpiece.
The series follows a range of
characters, but central is Angela
Abar (Regina King), a mother,
baker and undercover detective
in the Tulsa police force. In this
universe, policemen wear masks,
with detectives given superhero
personas. When Abar’s vigilante
Sister Night is drawn into an
apparent conspiracy stretching
back decades, she struggles to
maintain all her identities.
The show sets its frame early,
correcting the film’s biggest
mistake. That direct adaptation
Someone had
told her she
should watch
The Wire.
didn’t engage with its form,
making it a movie about comics.
The show engages with its
own medium instantly, showing
us a small child captivated by
heroic entertainment that
contrasts bleakly with what’s
happening in the real world. This
formal play continues with a
show-within-a-show (American
Hero Story), and unique edit
transitions throughout.
It also corrects the book’s most
significant oversight: the lack of
diversity. In the comic, black
characters are relegated to the
background. Here, the lead is
black, and the story’s a pointed
exploration of modern race
relations. The opening moments
– depicting a real race tragedy –
are as urgent and disturbing as
Doctor Manhattan exploding
bodies in Vietnam. Pay attention:
this will pay off in the series’ best
episode. HBO is as keen on
foreshadowing as the comic was.
Original icons are used
surprisingly but appropriately,
with Jeremy Irons’s Adrian Veidt
an increasingly disturbing
presence; Laurie Blake (Jean
Smart), daughter of The
Comedian, possessing her dad’s
cynicism; and Hooded Justice
(spoilers!) a TV star in his own
right. But it’s the new crew who
fascinate most, with Looking Glass
(Tim Blake Nelson) an adequate
Rorschach stand-in (they even eat
from cans in the same way). Oh,
and Trent Reznor and Atticus
Ross’s score feels like it’s been sent
from another planet, with more
throbbing power than Doctor
Manhattan’s... well, you know.
This Watchmen shouldn’t exist,
but we’re glad it does. It’s a
psychic weapon dropped into the
middle of a world where real-life
comic-book villains govern. Will it
have an impact? You’ll have to
watch to find out. Sam Ashurst
Lady Trieu may be inspired by her
elephant-riding historical namesake, called
“the Vietnamese Joan of Arc”.
HIS DARK
MATERIALS
UK BBC One, Sundays
US HBO, Mondays
Writer Jack Thorne
Cast Dafne Keen, Ruth Wilson,
James McAvoy, Anne-Marie Duff
EPISODE 1.01 The opening shot
of the BBC and HBO’s lavish
version of His Dark Materials
features a helicopter swooping
over an alternate Oxford. This
may set alarm bells ringing for
anyone who’s read the notably
helicopter-less first novel. Is
this going be a radical overhaul
barely recognisable to fans?
Thankfully no. Despite some
minor aesthetic alterations, a
few characters who don’t match
their prose descriptions, the
expansion or contraction of
some elements, and some plot
rejigging, the pilot is a
surprisingly faithful adaptation
that captures the themes, tone
and spirit of the novel perfectly.
You certainly get the feeling
that, unlike the 2005 movie, it
won’t be afraid to tackle the
books’ controversial religious
elements in future episodes.
The production values are
impressive, especially the
design and CG for the various
dæmons. It’s full of stunning
images, such a drowned Oxford.
The script manages to explain
author Philip Pullman’s
complicated world with a
lightness of touch, even if James
McAvoy’s Asriel does come
across like Professor Xposition
at times. And the casting is bold
but pays off, with some
magnificent performances,
especially Ruth Wilson as Mrs
Coulter and Dafne Keen as a
very spirited Lyra.
A promising start to a hugely
ambitious series. Stephen Kelly
LIVING WITH
YOURSELF
Miles and Miles
UK/US Netflix, streaming now
Creator Timothy Greenberg
Cast Paul Rudd, Aisling Bea, Desmin
Borges, Alia Shawkat
You know that
EPISODES 1.01-1.08
old cliché about sci-fi being a
mirror for the modern world?
Living With Yourself takes the
fantastical (we think) idea of
getting yourself cloned, and sets its
sights on middle age. So while this
show’s USP is giving you two Paul
Rudds for the price of one, you
also get a thoughtful, nuanced and
darkly funny drama with plenty to
say about the human condition.
The Ant-Man star plays Miles
Elliot, a marketing guy who’s lost
his mojo at both work and home.
PENNYWORTH Season One
Butler Begins
UK StarzPlay, streaming now
US Epix, finished airing
Showrunner Bruno Heller
Cast Jack Bannon, Paloma Faith, Jason
Flemyng, Polly Walker
EPISODES 1.01-1.10Bruce Wayne’s
butler was, it seems, to the
mannered born. Part crazed
genius, part cringeworthy toot,
Batman prequel Pennyworth is
quintessential cult TV, if not a
megamix of cult TV tropes. The
vast majority of viewers aren’t
going to “get” it, but those who do
will lap up its self-conscious
stylisation. But even they will
probably admit that at times it
tries too hard to be quirky.
Set in an alternate ’60s London
of airships, armed Beefeaters and a
political system in thrall to the
aristocracy, the series follows a
young Alfred, fresh out of the SAS,
On the advice of a colleague, he
signs up for a secretive “spa” that
promises to rejuvenate his life –
though the sales pitch omits the
small print explaining they do it by
creating a “perfect” clone and
ditching the original.
Taken on a purely technical
level, Living With Yourself is a
triumph. Not only do co-directors
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris
seamlessly integrate two Rudds,
the clever narrative structure –
constantly shifting between
Nuanced
and darkly
funny
returning to set up a security firm,
and becoming involved in a fascist
attempt to overthrow the
government. This may sound grim
and gritty, but as comic book
adaptations go, the tone is more
The League Of Extraordinary
“Cor blimey
guv’nor, apples
and pears,” etc.
Turns out his clone
was just as crap at
reading maps.
timelines and points-of-view –
keeps the story tripping along. But
it’s on the character level that the
series really shines, as the arrival
of Miles 2.0 opens existential cans
of worms about identity,
relationships and where your
life might be headed – although
Living With Yourself has been
billed as a comedy, it never
overplays the laughs.
Gentlemen than V For Vendetta.
Don’t expect biting satire, but
rather a burlesque pantomime
with gimps, a lascivious Queen
and plenty of bonking.
It’s all style over substance
– much of the former purloined
Aside from the saggy, slightly
directionless first two episodes,
the taut eight-part run is free from
so-called Netflix bloat. It’s
particularly refreshing that it feels
like a self-contained story in itself
– though the door is left slightly
ajar for a follow-up. Richard Edwards
Rudd shot the “doubled” scenes with no
stand-in, listening to audio of his filmed
performance via an earpiece.
from such ’60s shows as The
Avengers and The Prisoner (and
not just because Alfie says, “Be
seeing you,” repeatedly). Jack
Bannon’s Alfie is a combination of
Michael Caine’s Harry Palmer and
Number Six, his delightful
surliness giving the show a
supremely watchable centre.
Paloma Faith and Polly Walker
provide some charismatic villainy
as the dotty Sykes sisters, and
Jason Flemyng gets to wear a
polished metal nose as a power-
grabbing Lord.
It’s all delightfully British (Alfie
even says, “Gertcha”), wantonly
unhistorical and utterly ludicrous,
with drama often losing out to
one-liners. But there’s little feel of
a connection to Batman. The
inclusion of James and Martha
Wayne does little to link the series
with the Bat-mythos, while young
Alfie seems to have little interest
in following his dad into a life of
service. Then again, the show is
undeniably batty. Dave Golder
In episode two, a convict who’s hung,
drawn and quartered for “rape, sodomy
and murder” is named as James Savile...
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 91

SPIDER-MAN:
FAR FROM HOME
Stark Shadows
RELEASED 11 NOVEMBER
(download out now)
2019 | 12 | Blu-ray (4K/standard)/DVD/
download
Director Jon Watts
Cast Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal,
Zendaya, Samuel L Jackson, Cobie
Smulders, Jon Favreau
For a film so determined to
give you a good time, to cram your
face with candy and whoosh you
through the funfair, there’s an
improbably large shadow looming
over this Spider-sequel.
From crucial character
motivations to posthumous
technological gifts, street graffiti
tributes to a grisly zombie encore,
it’s a movie whose every frame
feels haunted by Tony Stark. Peter
Parker’s mentor may have died at
the end of Avengers: Endgame, but
he’s an inescapable presence here.
“I’m not Iron Man!” protests Peter
at one point, as if even our hero’s
had enough of his franchise being
stalked by the smirking spectre of
Robert Downey Jr.
Other post-Endgame baggage is
sorted with a lighter touch: the
They both fell
for the old “it’s
a fancy dress
party” trick.
92 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
aftermath of the Blip is dismissed
with a gag or two, freeing director
Jon Watts to deliver essentially a
bright, sweet, teenage road trip
comedy, punctuated by bouts of
green-screen mayhem. The young
cast has genuine comic chops and
the script gives them zingy
material to play with, while the
summer-holiday premise refreshes
Spider-Man’s standard imagery,
trading Manhattan’s skyscrapers
for postcard-friendly European
backdrops. There’s something
fresh and appealing about the
sight of webbing whipping around
a centuries-old Venetian tower, or
the gothic spires of Prague.
The plot finds SHIELD
recruiting a reluctant wall-crawler
to take down the Elementals, a
quartet of giant, superpowered
beings trashing cities around the
globe. It’s a thin excuse to pitch
Peter’s classmates into disaster
movie-style set-pieces that, given
the fundamentally glib tone, pack For someone with
all the authentic peril of log flume a secret identity, he
rides. No one ever feels in danger took his mask off
– this is feelgood, grip-the- quite a lot.
handrails stuff. While the
Elementals are supposedly inspired by such vintage comic
book foes as Cyclone and Feelgood,
Hydro-Man, they’re ultimately
little more than characterless grip-the-
digital demons, unmemorable for
all their spectacle. handrails
More satisfying is the live-
action debut of Mysterio, one of
the great Lee and Ditko creations.
stuff
He looks pleasingly faithful to the visually inventive sequences seen
comics, any hints of fishbowl- in a Marvel movie: a surreal
headed, cape-swirling daftness smackdown that feels like a dozen
confronted head-on and classic covers of The Amazing
embraced. He may be one of the Spider-Man duking it out. As
best ever page-to-screen Quentin Beck – Mysterio’s
transitions. His reality-warping alter-ego – Jake Gyllenhaal is
powers provide one of the most pitched as the dark Tony Stark,
 SUPER EUROS
Four more trips by
American capes

SUPERMAN
Exposed to
bootleg, tar-
laced
Kryptonite in
Superman III, a
spiteful Man of
Steel trolls the
Italian tourism
industry by
“correcting” the Leaning
Tower of Pisa. Cured of
his mean-hearted
K-funk, he restores the
landmark’s legendary
crooked angle at the
end. Evviva!

WONDER WOMAN
In a 1978 episode of
the TV series the
twirling, big-
knickered
Amazon
comes to
London
– looking
suspiciously like
Burbank, California
– for an adventure
involving a leprechaun
shoemaker, some
mobsters and a pot of
gold. A crock may be
more accurate.

bringing a simmering charisma,
barely repressed volatility flashing
in those soulful eyes.
Beneath the tireless wit and fizz
and Stark worship there’s a serious
point about the rise of Fake News
– “Now they’ll believe anything,”
says Beck, whose status as a
master of misdirection makes him
a topical antagonist. A mid-credits
stinger sets up a post-truth crisis
for Peter that will, at least, be
resolved in the MCU, now that the
big table stand-off between Disney
and Sony has been resolved. Let’s
hope that when he returns there’s
a little less Iron in his diet.
THE INVADERS
This Marvel
Comics
superteam
united such
wartime Nazi-
sluggers as
Captain
America, Sub-
Mariner and the
Human Torch, to battle
the Axis on the
European frontline. One
tale sees Thor in Russia,
Extras What’s billed as a “new outtakes (three minutes), along assigned to kill Josef
short film”, “Peter’s To-Do List” with five deleted and alternate Stalin on Hitler’s orders.
(three minutes) turns out to be scenes, including some of Flash Long story.
some deleted scenes stitched Thompson’s livestream phone
together; worth a watch, but footage. “Teacher’s Travel Tips” BATMAN
Biff! Ka-Pow! Cor-
inessential. There’s a rather (five minutes) feels like another Blimey! Sixties
shallow Making Of (29 minutes), excuse to sling some cut footage TV tale “The
notable for producer Amy Pascal together, while there’s a chance Londinium
teasing a Sinister Six movie, plus a to see parts of the film as early Larcenies”
smattering of behind-the-scenes deposits the
computer-generated pre-
Dynamic Duo in
featurettes (three minutes apiece) visualisations. Finally, “The jolly old Blighty,
covering everything from Spidey’s Brothers Trust” (11 minutes) is a thwarting Lord Ffogg
suits to the stuntwork, Mysterio to promo piece for Tom Holland’s and Lady Penelope
Aunt May. A rundown of Easter family charity. Nick Setchfield Peasoup and their
school for young lady
eggs does at least reveal some thieves. Swingin’ Dick
Mysterio made his screen debut in the
details you may have missed. ‘60s Spider-Man cartoon, voiced by Chris Grayson even wears
Elsewhere there’s a gag reel and Wiggins (also the voice of Thor). a Beatles wig!

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 93


THE DEAD CENTER
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD
Director Billy Senese
Cast Shane Carruth, Poorna
Jagannathan, Jeremy Childs,
The presence of Shane
Carruth, director of Primer and
Upstream Color, may lead you
to expect something offbeat or
cerebral from The Dead Center,
but it’s actually a surprisingly
conventional procedural horror.
After a suicide’s corpse
wakes up in the morgue, he
settles in an empty bed, ending
up in the psych ward where
Carruth’s shrink works,
catatonic. Meanwhile, a
medical examiner who’s clearly
watched too much Quincy
investigates the AWOL stiff.
As people start dying, the
psychiatrist realises the John
Doe is host to some ancient,
life-sucking entity.
Grounded in a convincing
medical milieu, the film has a
strong sense of verisimilitude,
and detached overhead shots
and a soundtrack of ominous
rumbles and whines lend it
a low-key eeriness. But that
understated approach is really
the only thing separating it
from a generic possession flick..
Extras Cast and crew revisit
the locations in a 38-minute
Making Of. This supplies some
interesting facts: the trippy
“soul-sucking” sequences used
Vaseline, black paint and a glass
from Walmart! There are two
commentaries (director/cast;
director/crew). Plus: two shorts
(45 minutes) – one an
inspiration for the film – and
seven radio plays (217 minutes)
by the director; nine deleted
scenes; three interviews;
head-casting footage; galleries;
trailers . Ian Berriman
94 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Cher’s fans waited
patiently in line
for the concert.
NIGHTBREED
Where The Wild Things Are
RELEASED OUT NOW!
1990 | 15 | Blu-ray
Director Clive Barker
Cast Craig Sheffer, Anne Bobby, David
Cronenberg, Charles Haid
BLU-RAY DEBUT Thanks to reshoots
and re-cutting, Clive Barker’s
adaptation of his novel Cabal
is notorious as an example of
money-men tampering.
David Boreanaz-alike Craig
Sheffer is the troubled Boone,
drawn by his dreams to Midian,
a subterranean realm under a
necropolis, populated by monsters.
The twist: like X-Men’s mutants,
they’re sympathetic. The cops
who descend to wipe them out
are the real bad guys.
The Director’s Cut included
here (alongside the original) trims
some footage and adds more,
ending up 19 minutes longer. It’s
not that radically different. There’s
extra character-establishing early
on; Doug Bradley gets his voice
back after being redubbed; a newly
romantic ending is an upgrade.
Both cuts meld fairy-tale
fantasy, gore, eroticism and
explosive action in rather jarring
fashion. Both could explain
themselves much better. The
consistent triumph is Midian,
a baroque, perversely beautiful
world whose ravishing tableaux of
outlandish creatures recall Bosch,
Fellini and an S&M club. Anyone
who feels like a misfit will respond
to this sympathetic portrayal of
life on the margins.
Extras A weekend’s worth! Both
cuts have commentaries (horror
critics/a delighted Barker). A
72-minute Making Of harvests the
memories of six cast. There are 26
minutes of deleted/alternate
scenes. The effects guys (53
minutes) and second unit director
(20 minutes) have their say, and
the theatrical cut’s editor (14
minutes) supplies a case for the
defence. New for 2019: actor
Nicolas Vince charmingly
chuckling through dying-his-
chest-hair anecdotes (30 minutes);
contextualising talking heads by
critics Kat Ellinger and Kim
Newman (41 minutes). Plus:
matte painting, make-up and
stop-motion tests; rehearsal
footage; seven galleries; trailers.
Ian Berriman
Marc Almond was originally cast as
Nightbreed Ohnaka; body casts were done
for a scene where the sun blisters him.
BRIGHTBURN
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download
Director David Yaroveskya
Cast Elizabeth Banks, David
Denman, Jackson Dunn, Matt Jones
“What if Clark Kent was
evil?” That’s essentially the
pitch of this horror movie/
superhero origin story
mash-up, although – no doubt
on the advice of their lawyers
– all involved noticeably shy
away from using the S word.
Jackson Dunn plays
12-year-old Brandon (a sly nod
to Routh?), whose growing
pains have an added
complication: his parents aren’t
really his parents, having found
him as a baby when an alien
pod crashed by their farm;
a pod which now turns on,
activating Brandon’s powers
(strength, speed, flight) and
whispering world domination
in his ear.
Found-footage flick Chronicle
kinda planted its flag in this
territory first, but it’s still a neat
pitch – and young Dunn’s
impassivity is Damien-level
creepy (Super Omen?). In the
extras the cast talk of the
resonance of the underlying
nature vs nurture themes, but
really, to the degree that the
film works, it does so almost
entirely because of its
sometimes gasp-worthy
willingness to commit to sheer
downright nastiness.
Extras A potty-mouthed
commentary by the director,
cinematographer and costume
designer has some interesting
insights into the use of colour
(the worse Brandon gets, the
more red he wears), and how
reshoots changed the film.
Otherwise: just 12 minutes of
featurette blah. Ian Berriman

SATANIC PANIC
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 18 | Blu-ray/DVD
“Are you ready to make an
investment in your future?”
asks Rebecca Romijn’s evil
cultist in this demented
horror-comedy. Here, the 1%
are demon-worshippers
desperate to sacrifice a virgin
to Baphomet, while chanting
affirmations ripped right off an
Instagram photo of a sunset.
Heavy-handed? Nah. Satanic
Panic makes an earnest point,
but with its zippy dialogue and
endless ideas, it’s worthy of
a place in the cult canon.
Extras Four short featurettes;
director’s FrightFest intro;
trailer. Sarah Dobbs
This year’s chess
world championship
was well weird.
GHOST STORY
RELEASED OUT NOW!
1974 | 12 | Blu-ray
BLU-RAY DEBUT This period
horror was shot, remarkably,
with India doubling for
England. When three
mismatched university chums
stay in a country house one’s
inherited, another experiences
echoes of the house’s tragic
past. It’s light on scares, and the
visions seem confusingly like
simple flashbacks, but ’30s
slang, bursts of jaunty piano
and overblown sound effects
make it an interesting curio.
Extras Lengthy, fascinating
Making Of; commentary; TV
ads/shorts by the director;
more. Ian Berriman
CHILD’S PLAY
Toy’s Gory
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD/download
Director Lars Klevberg
Cast Gabriel Bateman, Aubrey Plaza,
Brian Tyree Henry, Mark Hamill
Remember when Doctor Who
did a zeitgeisty, Bluetooth-riffing
update on the Cybermen? It made
perfect sense, but many felt they
lost their essential eeriness in the
process. This reboot takes a
similar risk. No longer is killer
doll Chucky the result of a dying
killer’s voodoo. Instead, a
state-of-the-art robotic “Buddi”
goes rogue after its safety
protocols are deactivated.
Cleverly, this renders Chucky
(voiced by Mark Hamill)
surprisingly sympathetic. The AI
just wants to make his owner,
Andy, happy, but has a warped
idea of how to do so.
PREY
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 15 | DVD/download
The scariest thing about
this Blumhouse horror is that
anyone could think the central
premise – traumatised teens are
dumped individually on tiny
“uninhabited” Malaysian
islands as part of a rehab
treatment to shock them into
getting over themselves – was
a good idea. Beyond that, the
attempts at actual scares barely
register. Escape Room’s Logan
Miller isn’t interesting/likeable
enough to carry the endless
solo scenes, either, so this is a
drag even at 82 minutes. Still,
Malaysia looks pretty.
Extras None. Sarah Dobbs
The kills are wince-inducingly
gruesome, and the tone likeably
laconic – everyone, including
Andy’s mum (peak Audrey Plaza),
has a flair for snark. Compared to
the 1988 original, the reboot feels
a little enclosed. And a subplot
about other Buddi models feels
weirdly half-formed. Otherwise
there’s a strong case for saying that
the do-over’s blend of emotion,
gore and pitch-black farce makes
it the better movie.
Extras Spielberg’s influence is
a recurring theme in director Lars
Klevberg’s commentary; his
Norwegian accent can be hard to
tune into. Despite mention of
various trims, there are no deleted
scenes: just two short featurettes,
stop-motion promos, trailers, and
a gallery. Ian Berriman
The first draft of the script had a festive
timeframe, with the launch of Buddi 2
taking place on Christmas Eve.
DOOM:
ANNIHILATION
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 15 | Blu-ray/DVD
With its British actors,
rubber-suited brutes and
budget CG, Tony Giglio’s
thriller resembles a modern
Doctor Who episode. Dispel
thoughts of the 2005 mis-step;
this is an independent shot at
the videogame franchise. A
squad of marines race to secure
a demon-infested base on
Phobos. Character development
is slight, even for the lead grunt.
But there are flashes of
self-aware humour, and it
shotguns Easter eggs at fans.
Extras None. Dave Bradley
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 95

WONDER WOMAN:
BLOODLINES
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | PG | Blu-ray/DVD/download
Director Sam Liu
Cast Rosario Dawson, Jeffrey
Donovan, Marie Avgeropoulos
For a film with “blood” in
its title, this DC Universe outing
feels limp and lacklustre, too
busy trying to chase the energy
of the Patty Jenkins movie to
forge anything new of its own
– disappointing for a film
featuring a razor-winged
cybernetic woman and a
Minotaur who aspires to be
a gourmet chef.
It begins like any other origin
story. After meeting handsome
pilot Steve Trevor, warrior
princess Diana leaves her
homeland Themyscira to join
the world of man. But she soon
comes up against a rogues’
gallery of frighteningly altered
women: Doctor Poison, Doctor
Cypher, Silver Swan, Cheetah
and Giganta, who team up to
form organisation Villainy Inc!
There is so much potential to
create something gripping out
of Wonder Woman’s rich
source material but Bloodlines
is either boring – we feel like
we’ve seen Diana fish Steve
Trevor out of the water 100
times by now – or just stiff, its
animation struggling to convey
any emotion on the characters’
faces. And while it’s cool to see
so many classic female villains
together in one film, you soon
glaze over from their paint-by-
numbers backstories and lack
of anything vital to say.
Extras Animated short
“Death”, featuring Neil
Gaiman’s character; a featurette
on Cheetah; Superman: Red Son
preview. Kimberley Ballard
96 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
The Strictly couple
made the most of their
embarrassing tumble.
HAMMER HORROR
Bloody hippies
RELEASED OUT NOW!
1972/1973 | 15 | Blu-ray
Director Alan Gibson
Cast Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing,
Stephanie Beacham, Joanna Lumley
BLU-RAY DEBUT Even the undead
need to move with the times.
By the early ’70s horror kings
Hammer were fighting to stay
relevant, delivering edgier, fleshier
fare to Britain’s nicotine-fogged
fleapits and hurling their most
iconic character out of the velvet
past and into the present day.
Dracula AD 1972
relocates the Count to
contemporary London,
resurrected by thrill-seeking
Chelsea scenesters in a nod to the
Satanism craze that was the dark
mirror to hippiedom’s Age of
Aquarius. It already feels
semi-parodic – “Black Mass and
that sort of jazz!” – but the
backdrop of building sites,
back-alleys and West Ham graffiti
Satanic is
the more
interesting
MOOMINVALLEY
Series One
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | U | Blu-ray/DVD
Director Steve Box
ALAMY/HAMMER (1)
Cast Taron Egerton, Matt Berry,
Rosamund Pike, Edvin Endre
Tove Jansson’s evergreen
tales from Moominvalley have
been brought to life on TV
before – most notably by Poland
and Japan – but rarely has her
world been rendered as
perfectly as it has in this
British-Finnish adaptation.
Part-crowdfunded and voiced
by an array of stars including
gives it an intriguingly grubby, Taron Egerton (as a perfectly
prosaic vibe, very different to the exasperated Moomintroll) and
Swinging London glamour pushed Kate Winslet, Moominvalley
by the film’s promo campaign. follows our gentle heroes from
Alan Gibson directs with flashes of a spring awakening through
style – an imperiously low-angled a beautiful summer and deep
Christopher Lee manifests out of into winter, loosely following
curling mist – while Peter Cushing storylines from the books.
is all grim sincerity as Van Helsing, There are a few annoying
grandson of the original slayer. anachronisms: Little My calling
The Satanic Rites Of Dracula something “super-dull”, for
is the more interesting instance. But for the most part
movie, if only for genre-splicing this is charming, timeless
horror with espionage, creating entertainment that conjures the
what feels like an even more spirit of the books so well it’s
outlandish episode of The New like the showrunners scraped
Avengers. Now the Count’s a the inside of your childhood
Bond-level mastermind, plotting brain and pasted the contents
global apocalypse from a onto the screen. Special praise
skyscraper. Lee famously hated goes to Edvin Endre as a sweet,
this modernisation but these enigmatic Snufkin, while Matt
pulpy, kitschy films have become Berry inhabits Moominpappa
period pieces too, fascinating so well he needs to wear a top
examples of Bri-Nylon Gothic. hat for the rest of his life.
Extras Disappointingly, given Best of all are the
the excellence of on-disc bonuses Hattifatteners and the Groke,
on other labels’ Hammer releases, made terrifying by music and
these HMV-exclusive Premium sound effects that will have
Collection discs just have trailers
But you do also get four
younger children hiding
behind the sofa.
artcards and a poster. Nick Setchfield
Screenwriter Don Houghton also wrote the
Extras Short interviews with
the creative team to go with
Pertwee era Doctor Who stories “Inferno”
and “The Mind Of Evil”.
each episode, amounting to 30
minutes in total. Jayne Nelson

MIDSOMMAR
Cruel Summer
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 18 | Blu-ray
Director Ari Aster
Cast Florence Pugh, Jack Reynor,
William Jackson Harper,
Vilhelm Blomgren
Despite the brutal horror in
Midsommar, the images that’ll
stick with you are all close-ups of
Florence Pugh’s face. Pugh crying
inconsolably. Pugh screaming in
abject horror. And, in the closing
moments, Pugh smiling beatifically.
Like writer/director Ari Aster’s
previous film, Hereditary,
Midsommar is a story about grief
and heartbreak built around one
massive performance. When we
first meet Pugh’s Dani Amour,
she’s already in a state of distress,
and things only get worse from
there. Midsommar opens in
mid-winter, as Dani discovers that
98 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
HOME ENTERTAINMENT
“Chris Martin
turned down
Ed’s role?
What a relief!”
her depressed sister has killed not
only herself but also their parents.
Her pain is immense, and the only
support she has left is her useless
boyfriend, Christian (Jack Reynor),
who was already planning to
dump her. But when she invites
herself along on a lads’ holiday to
Sweden, where Christian and his
anthropology student mates are
hoping to study the rituals of the
mysterious Hårga community,
well… let’s just say her internal
anguish gets externalised.
The director’s cut (only on
Blu-ray) doesn’t feel necessary:
the extra scenes include an extra
abortive ritual and more bickering,
and they extend an already long
film to an indulgent 163 minutes.
But then it was an indulgent film
in the first place. Did every flat
surface really have to be covered
in paintings, tapestries, or runes
spelling out the unsuspecting
YESTERDAY
Nowhere Men
RELEASED OUT NOW!
2019 | 12 | Blu-ray(4K/standard)/DVD/
download/VOD
Director Danny Boyle
Cast Himesh Patel, Lily James,
Kate McKinnon, Ed Sheeran
Few screenwriters are as
aggressively Marmite as Richard
Curtis. His chocolate box view of
the world can be seen as a bit
smug, a bit middle-class, so
eyebrows were raised when it was
announced that his next script
would be helmed by Danny Boyle.
Would it be similar to the way
that, in the Beatles, John Lennon
gave a bit of bite to Paul
McCartney’s more slushy efforts,
and Macca in turn softened some
of Lennon’s sharper edges?
Sadly, Yesterday is more
“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” than “A
Day In The Life”. It sets up a
characters’ doom? Was there any
need for all the scenes of people
sitting down to eat together? And
were all those over-saturated,
distorted flowers really needed? Of
course not! But those details, plus
Pugh’s killer performance, elevate
what could have been a basic
Wicker Man re-tread into an
intense sensory experience that
demands your rapt attention.
seductively thrilling premise
– what would happen if (like
Himesh Patel’s struggling
musician hero) you woke up in
a world where the Fab Four had
never existed – then seems
uncertain what to do with it. What
it does unintentionally tell you is
that it’s not really the songs in
themselves that are timeless, but
the actual Beatles performance.
Sorry, but Himesh Patel wouldn’t
even pass the audition.
Extras On DVD: commentary
by Curtis and Boyle, an alternate
ending and deleted scenes. The
Blu-ray formats add Patel
performing three songs at Abbey
Road Studios, six featurettes (each
three to five minutes long), an
alternate opening and a gag reel.
Steve O’Brien
Ed Sheeran’s supporting role was originally
intended for Coldplay frontman Chris
Martin, who turned it down.
The watch
thief knew
exactly when
to strike.
Yes, it takes nearly three hours
to get somewhere any horror fan
will already have known it was
heading. But it’s worth the trip.
Extras A 24-minute Making Of
which skims the surface, and an ad
for a “Bear In A Cage” toy. No
commentaries, sadly. Sarah Dobbs
The entire Hårga commune – 10 buildings,
complete with intricate interior design –
was built from scratch in two months.

NEVERWHERE
RELEASED OUT NOW!
1996 | 15 | Blu-ray
Creators Neil Gaiman, Lenny Henry
Cast Gary Bakewell, Laura Fraser,
Paterson Joseph, Hywel Bennett
BLU-RAY DEBUT Neverwhere
was ahead of its time – but not
in a good way. Neither
particularly groundbreaking
nor well made, this 1996 BBC
Two series suffers from being
produced decades before TV
companies really invested in
fantasy. It hasn’t aged well.
In those distant days, BBC
Two had neither the resources
nor, apparently, the inclination
to tell Neil Gaiman and Lenny
Henry’s tale of a fantastical,
underground London with any
visible flair. Every storytelling
flourish or entertaining
performance has to be viewed
through a prism of production
values that were unambitious
even in the mid-’90s. London
Below is the biggest
disappointment, feeling less a
living, breathing world than
an apocalypse-themed
nightclub populated by failed
Mad Max cosplayers.
It’s a shame, because
Neverwhere isn’t short of
memorable characters or ideas
– turning London locations like
Blackfriars, the Angel Islington
and the Old Bailey into people
is inspired. But with only six
half-hour episodes, pretty much
everything feels rushed and
undercooked. The story
remains sound, but it’s easier to
enjoy in the novel that followed.
Extras From the 2007 DVD:
a Gaiman commentary and
interview. From the 2011
release: commentary from
Gaiman, Henry and producer
Clive Brill, and another Gaiman
interview. Richard Edwards
AN AMERICAN
WEREWOLF IN
LONDON
RELEASED OUT NOW!
1981 | 18 | Blu-ray
Director John Landis
Cast David Naughton, Griffin Dunne,
Jenny Agutter, John Woodvine
Though it’s regarded as one
of the great horror-comedies,
it’s worth remembering that An
American Werewolf In London
is also a heartbreaker. Poor
David goes abroad with his best
friend, only to watch him die in
a werewolf attack; he falls for a
kind nurse, but it all ends in
tragedy. All that sadness means
it still hits as hard as ever.
Extras The extras are
exhaustive, including
everything from Universal’s
2009 Blu-ray (including
documentary Beware The
Moon, a John Landis interview,
two Rick Baker interviews, cast
commentary and more), plus a
grab-bag of new stuff. Oh, and
a poster, six postcards, and
60-page booklet.
The commentary by Beware
The Moon’s Paul Davis includes
interesting trivia, but a 12-
minute John Landis interview
sees him repeating anecdotes
included elsewhere. Video
essay “I Think He’s A Jew”
offers a smart alternate reading,
while The Nun’s Corin Hardy
talks sweetly but unnecessarily
for 11 minutes, and The Prop
Store’s Tim Lawes shrugs that
most of the props were lost.
Most disappointingly, new
feature-length doc Mark Of The
Beast is a personality-free
trudge through the werewolf’s
cinematic history. Saving grace:
Arrow’s new restoration is
pristine. Sarah Dobbs
THE STAND
RELEASED OUT NOW!
1994 | 15 | Blu-ray
Director Mick Garris
Cast Gary Sinise, Rob Lowe, Jamey
Sheridan, Molly Ringwald
BLU-RAY DEBUT With a fresh
Stand coming to CBS in 2020,
there’s no better time to revisit
the 1994 miniseries. At least,
that was probably the logic
behind this Blu-ray release.
Unfortunately, Mick Garris’s
adaptation of Stephen King’s
epic novel about a plague
that splits survivors into
goodies versus baddies has aged
about as well as a kid with
Captain Trips.
Every element, from the
self-conscious shooting style to
the creator cameos, to the fact
it’s so ’90s it features Molly
Ringwald and Gary Sinese, feels
dated. Performances are stagey,
the pacing is slow, and in a
post-Walking Dead world, it
feels pretty pointless. At least it
looks nice, restored from the
original 16mm negative. The
same can’t be said for the
sound, which is limited to
2.0 stereo.
Extras Thank goodness
for the extras. The audio
commentary (recorded in
2000) is superb, cutting
together sessions with King
on his own, and Garris with
relevant cast. King is in an
especially reflective mood,
revealing he believes, “the only
thing that can cause an
authentic change in the human
heart is a miracle”. There’s
plenty of insight into what it
took to make the mini-series,
as well as profound reflections
on life and death. A five-
minute Making Of is also
carried over from the old DVD.
Sam Ashurst
ROUND UP
Don’t have Amazon Prime,
and can’t wait until it airs
on BBC Two? You could
always pick up the discs of
GOOD OMENS (out now,
Blu-ray/DVD). In this
adaptation of the Terry
Pratchett/Neil Gaiman
book, David Tennant and
Michael Sheen play a
demon and an angel who
team up to prevent the
apocalypse. Bonuses
include commentaries,
deleted scenes and four
collector’s cards. We said:
“Narratively, it’s a mess,
but it exudes an
infectiously manic comic
energy. Elegant
production design and
quirky costumes add to
the exquisite silliness.”
James Cagney stars in
MAN OF A THOUSAND
FACES (out now, Blu-ray),
a biopic of Lon Chaney,
the make-up genius who
transformed himself into
Quasimodo and the
Phantom of the Opera.
This restoration comes
with expert commentary
and a Kim Newman talking
head. We said: “Horror
fans may be frustrated by
the focus on the personal
life, and the melodramatic
handling is unintentionally
amusing.” Johnny Vegas
and Mackenzie Crook star
in TALES FROM THE
LODGE (out now, DVD),
a portmanteau horror-
comedy about five friends
gathered to scatter ashes,
who tell scary stories to
pass the time. We said: “Its
mix of dark wit and pathos
is affecting and nicely
underplayed, but a last act
twist carries a whiff of
bigotry.” Also out now:
box sets of The Expanse
Season Three and Legends
Of Tomorrow Season Four
(Blu-ray/DVD); 4K debuts
for Frozen, Terminator
Salvation, Universal Soldier
and The Wizard Of Oz.
Two MCU Phase Three 4K
box sets arrive on 11
November.
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 99

THE PURSUIT OF
WILLIAM ABBEY
A jolly good follow
RELEASED 12 NOVEMBER
464 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook
Author Claire North
Publisher Orbit Books
There’s more than a whiff of
2014 indie horror movie It Follows
about this unsettling work. The
film conjured a sense of looming,
inescapable dread from the idea of
a supernatural presence slowly
stalking its teenaged prey. In The
Pursuit Of William Abbey the
same thing happens, but to an
adult, and across an entire lifetime.
It’s a surprisingly simple conceit
but Catherine Webb (aka Claire
North) has turned an interesting
idea into a scathing, morally
troubling indictment of human
frailty that leaves the antics of the
It Follows kids in the dust.
The “pursuit” at the centre of
the story is focused on the aimless
and spoilt William Abbey,
half-heartedly working as a doctor
in Natal, South Africa, in 1884.
When he witnesses a mob of
British colonists lynch a young
100 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
black boy for daring to touch a
white girl, Abbey does nothing to
help, hamstrung by his own fear
and cowardice. But his lack of
action doesn’t go unnoticed; the
child’s grieving mother punishes
Abbey for his failure to act by
flinging a curse at him.
And what a curse. For the rest of
his days, Abbey is followed by the
shambling, relentless, never-
ceasing ghost of the boy. He can
stay ahead of it, but the ghost
never gives up. The shadow trails
him calmly as he criss-crosses the
Earth to avoid its touch. It walks
across oceans as well as land,
sometimes left behind when
Abbey hops on a train or steamer,
but always there, plodding away,
heading towards him as though
the fleeing human is due north
on its ghostly compass.
The dead boy’s aim isn’t murder.
Instead, when the spirit gets close
enough to touch him, Abbey loses
someone he loves. And as if that’s
not bad enough, the nearer the
ghost gets, the more Abbey is
compelled to tell the truth. He can
BOOKS
see into people’s hearts and knows
precisely what they’re thinking,
and as the boy approaches he finds
that he can’t keep quiet, babbling
personal secrets to the world.
All in all, Abbey is in quite
a pickle. The beauty of this book,
however, is its focus isn’t only on
the horror of a man on the run: it
also has a cheeky sense of humour,
because of course the British
government want to enlist his
services as a spy (he can sense
secrets, after all). And so Abbey
doesn’t just circle the Earth to
avoid his ghostly follower – he
does so while helping the very
bastards whose colonial cruelty
was responsible for the boy’s death
in the first place. Irony aside, his
spy shenanigans add a touch of
light relief to an otherwise
coal-black story.
This is still a bleak experience,
however, as North doesn’t stint on
retelling the cruelties of the
mighty British Empire, or the gore
Horror
and a cheeky
sense of
humour
that results from so many bloody
wars, from India to France. In
a way, the book is a history lesson
as well as a supernatural horror
crossed with a spy caper – a
merging of genres that the author
pulls off with flair. Its character
building is excellent, too, with
both Abbey and the various
damaged souls he encounters
ringing as real as you or I.
But it’s that dogged, inexorable
pursuit that will stay with you long
after the book has been finished.
You’ll find yourself wondering
how you’d cope in Abbey’s
situation: how planes would make
escape far easier in the 21st
century, but an unexpected delay
or illness could destroy everyone
you care about. Rather fittingly,
The Pursuit Of William Abbey will
follow you like a ghost tracking its
prey. Jayne Nelson
North’s Matthew Swift novels (written as
Kate Griffin) are being developed for TV...
though it’s taking a while.
THE FUTURE
OF ANOTHER
TIMELINE
RELEASED OUT NOW!
384 pages | Paperback/
ebook/audiobook
Author Annalee Newitz
Publisher Orbit Books
“But what if we changed
history?” It’s the perennial
question of time travel stories,
and – let’s be honest – it’d be
pretty high on our wishlist if we
ever got the chance, right?
In Annalee Newitz’s
alternate history, time traveller
is a profession, like biologist or
historian. You go to university,
get qualified, then apply for
grants to use one of five
machines around the world.
Officially, everyone is engaged
in Serious Research, and
no-one would dream of trying
to change history. Unofficially,
of course they bloody do. All
the time.
The resulting edit wars are
silent but devastating. Newitz
focuses on a battle over
women’s rights in the US. Men
from the future are altering the
past to prevent women getting
the vote or legalising abortion;
other travellers band together
across the centuries to revert
the changes before they can
become fixed.
It’s not a subtle story – some
may find it preachy, others not
preachy enough – but it’s a
gripping one. There’s real
tension in the race to make
changes, and at its heart is a
proper gut punch of a paradox:
how do you fight for something
that’s being stolen from you
before your birth, erasing your
memory of ever having it in the
first place? Nic Clarke
A MARVELOUS
LIFE
RELEASED OUT NOW!
378 pages | Hardback/
ebook/audiobook
Author Danny Fingeroth
Publisher Simon & Schuster
Few people leave behind
the kind of pop culture legacy
that the legendary Stan Lee
managed, and this new
biography sets out to tell the
story of the man who became
the face of Marvel. Charting the
course of Stanley Martin Lieber
from gangly assistant editor to
comics titan, A Marvelous Life
is just as much a history of the
rise of Marvel Comics and the
various circumstances that led
to the astonishing creative
successes that Lee pulled off
during the ’60s.
Author Danny Fingeroth
can’t be faulted for attention to
detail. There’s an intimidating
level of research here, and the
book is strongest when
analysing the connections
between Lee’s life and major
works like Spider-Man’s first
appearance, as well as showing
how Lee gave Marvel a
distinctive and iconic voice.
It also doesn’t steer away
from the various controversies
that dogged Lee over the years,
but almost always takes Lee’s
side, to an extent that leaves the
book feeling far from impartial.
Fingeroth also struggles to keep
the petty ups and downs of
comic book production
consistently interesting, and
while A Marvelous Life has
strong moments and is
worthwhile for hardcore
Marvel fans, it’s hard not to feel
that the definitive Stan Lee
biography is still waiting to be
written. Saxon Bullock
SALVATION LOST
Harvest For The World
RELEASED OUT NOW!
480 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook
Author Peter F Hamilton
Publisher Macmillan
Even in a future of plenty,
some things will be too good to be
true. At least, that is, if we’re to
judge by Peter F Hamilton’s
Salvation Sequence, which finds
humanity in the 23rd century
increasingly reliant on technology
provided by seemingly well-
intentioned aliens, the Olyix.
Except the Olyix have plans to
“harvest” humanity, a plan
Hamilton shows coming to fruition
in a slice of invasion literature
that’s never better than when we
see events from the in-the-gutter-
looking-up perspective of tech-
savvy London gang the Southwark
Legion. Humanity is hopelessly
outgunned and so resistance is, at
least in the short term, futile.
As a second narrative set further
in the future makes clear, however,
His books
seem to be
getting better
by the year
that doesn’t mean all is lost. In a
novel where one of the recurring
themes is how to plan for distant
futures, we also see humanity
engaged in a kind of vast guerrilla
war where the fighters only catch
glimpses of the bigger picture.
As this is the second volume in
a trilogy, you might say the same of
the entire book, and it says much
for Hamilton’s ability to handle big
narratives that this never proves
distracting. Instead, the twin plots,
and various subplots, keep you
turning the pages.
This much we expect from
Hamilton, a key figure in rebooting
British space opera back in the
day. What’s more notable is his
growing ability, refined over recent
books, to make you care about a
large cast of well-rounded
characters – as opposed to the
stock types moving through
supporting roles that were in
evidence in his earlier works.
When the end does arrive, there
are hints as to how things might
resolve, but when Hamilton’s on
this form you wouldn’t want to
second guess too much, because
his books seem to be getting better
by the year. A master craftsman of
huge imagination. Jonathan Wright
When it does appear, probably next year,
the final volume of the Salvation Sequence
will be titled Saints Of Salvation.
SOON
RELEASED OUT NOW!
352 pages | Paperback/ebook
Author Lois Murphy
Publisher Titan Books
There’s a very simple pun
at the heart of Lois Murphy’s
excellent debut novel: Nebulah
is a ghost town – literally.
One night a mist subsumed
the small Australian outpost,
bringing with it a horde of
deadly spectres. Each day the
sun rises, and the town appears
back to normal. But when night
inevitably falls, the only way to
survive is to hunker down
indoors with the doors and
windows locked. Only six
people remain in the town;
broken folk with nowhere to
go. And then, one day, Pete is
given a warning: he needs to
leave – and soon – because
death is coming...
Soon gains much of its power
from anticipation. During the
day, the townsfolk are tense, but
there’s a credible mundanity to
their interactions. They bicker
and hold personal grudges,
but the knowledge that this
normalcy never lasts lends
the book a palpable tension.
Throughout, Murphy’s
worldbuilding is restrained
but expertly deployed: we learn
early on that the town has
become popular with disaster
tourists and that outsiders
have been trying to exploit
its misfortunes.
Partially inspired by
Wittenoom, a real Australian
mining town that was
evacuated after asbestos
contamination was discovered,
Murphy’s book is an excellent
portrait of people desperately
trying to cling onto the status
quo in the face of impossible
odds. Will Salmon
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 101

A 1966 Batman
fan club card.
A 2002 schematic of
the 1940s Batmobile.
BATMAN: THE
DEFINITIVE HISTORY
Bruce Almighty
RELEASED OUT NOW!
400 pages | Hardback
Authors Andrew Farago, Gina McIntyre
Publisher Insight Editions
First things first: this is an
absolute Bat-slab of a book. And
its ambition is as big as its
dimensions. This outsized
lap-breaker (unwieldly full
subtitled: The Definitive History Of
The Dark Knight In Comics, Film
And Beyond) charts 80 years of the
Gotham guardian in all his
multimedia mutations.
102 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
BOOKS
Taken chapter by chapter, it’s a
straight-ahead trot through the
mythos, one that feels unfairly
weighted (the first 40 years
comprise only a quarter of the
book, while a comparatively
recent run like the “No Man’s
A are impeccable, but dear God, the
wonderful
treasure-
trail
I AM C-3PO:
THE INSIDE STORY
RELEASED OUT NOW!
272 pages | Hardback/ebook/
audiobook
On set for the
Author Anthony Daniels
1989 movie’s
Publisher DK
cathedral climax.
The first thing that springs
A patriotic 1943 to mind when reading Anthony
comic cover. Daniels’s debut memoir is: why
has it taken this long? You’d
think that Star Wars
autobiographies would be
commonplace after over 40
years, but with the exception of
a few self-published offerings
– and that Carrie Fisher book
– we’ve yet to really have a
galaxy far, far away explored in
this format.
That in itself means this
book is certainly in the
page-turner category – but
when you realise that it’s going
to cover all of C-3PO’s
Land” saga is picked apart in cinematic outings, as well as
exhausting detail). But it’s television and seasonal
illuminated by quotes from key recordings, there’s a sudden
creators and pundits, and there pang of sadness that it’s all
are some genuine insights going to be over too quickly.
along the way: Frank Miller Indeed, when first delving into
was inspired to create The Dark the casting – in this case, quite
Knight Returns by his existential literally – of the protocol droid,
shudder at turning 30 (30!), and
a radical if not heretical ’80s
you get the feeling that many
would have been quite happy
reboot would have given just to read a book on the
Batman superpowers. making of the first film.
Included among the pages is a This will largely be down to
wonderful treasure-trail of paper Daniels’s witty and to-the-point
IMAGES COURTESY OF INSIGHT EDITIONS.
ephemera, from Batmobile writing, with short chapters
blueprints to co-creator Bob that leave you wanting more
Kane’s 1986 story treatment for a behind-the-scenes information.
movie (his instincts for the tone Hardcore fans might not learn
dialogue…). And there’s a pull-out
anything new, but it’s an
extremely enjoyable journey
Batman mask too, in case you feel
the call of your city’s alleyways…
that’s over too soon.
Spoiler fans will be pleased to
Nick Setchfield
Loyal manservant Alfred originally had the
hear there is material
pertaining to The Rise Of
surname Beagle, not Pennyworth, and was
portrayed as a tubby klutz.
Skywalker, but our early copy
was redacted. Boo! Darren Scott

THE STARLESS SEA GHOSTER
RELEASED OUT NOW!
494 pages | Hardback/
ebook/audiobook
Author Erin Morgenstern
Publisher Harvill Secker
Fairy tales, myths, legends,
videogames… from early
civilisation, humans have told
each other stories. This new
novel from the author of The
Night Circus is a celebration
of storytelling, of literature,
and of love and romance,
and finding a place that feels
like home.
When gaming grad student
Zachary was a child, he almost
walked through a door painted
on a wall, but then turned
away. Years later, he finds a
book with no author, which
tells stories of the otherworldly
Harbors around the Starless
Sea – and also the tale of
himself as a boy, almost
stumbling into that world.
From here he chases down
a secret society, a woman
with pink hair, and yet more
books containing yet more
stories, as he falls into a place
that can be reached only by
certain entrances – but
someone is trying to destroy
the doors.
In its tales of a land just
below our own, The Starless
Sea effortlessly constructs
a fantasy that feels real,
building a world filled with
characters that you’ll know
and care about – even if you’re
often not sure who or what
they really are. At times it
borders on being too whimsical,
and the ending strays a little
too close to a dream-like telling,
but it manages to stay
grounded, offering an
enchanting, satisfying finish.
Rhian Drinkwater
RELEASED OUT NOW!
474 pages | Paperback/
ebook/audiobook
Author Jason Arnopp
Publisher Orbit
For much of its length, only
the title of Ghoster suggests
that it exists in SFX’s territory.
It starts as an enjoyable riff
on bestselling missing person
thrillers such as Gone Girl
and The Girl On The Train.
This time the missing person
is a man, the handsome but
plainly untrustworthy Scott
Palmer. The story’s told from
the viewpoint of his girlfriend
Kate, a paramedic who loves
him to bits, and is about to
move into his seaview
apartment in Brighton. Then
Scott stops replying to her texts,
and when she arrives at the
apartment, it’s been stripped
bare, as if he never existed.
Weirdly, he left behind his
smartphone, which contains
a labyrinth of disturbing
media mysteries. Meanwhile,
flashbacks to the pair’s
relationship give us more
clues to chew on.
The book’s largely about the
paranoias and maladies of the
smartphone age, but you can
enjoy it equally for Kate’s
fearful/funny narrator’s voice,
and for her faithful voice-of-
reason colleague Izzy, whose
role is crucial.
As Ghoster heads into SFX
territory, there’s a terrifically
tense set-piece at the dead of
night, though it does rely on
you accepting that Kate’s
obsession with Scott leads her
to break every cardinal “don’t”
rule of horror stories. The
denouement is wonky, and silly
in places, but the wrap-up
works. Andrew Osmond
THE BEAUTIFUL
RELEASED OUT NOW!
432 pages | Hardback/ebook
Author Renée Ahdieh
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton
While much of The
Beautiful is an entertaining
19th century romp with
intriguing characters and
a halfway-decent central
mystery, it’s also very hard
to read without finding
yourself chuckling at some of
the most terrible, terrible
flowery prose to be found on
God’s green Earth.
Riffing unashamedly on
Anne Rice’s work (it’s about
vampiric creatures living in
New Orleans; and the author
admits that she loves Rice, so
at least she’s not hiding her
homage), this is the story of
a seamstress who flees Paris
after killing a man who tries to
rape her. Arriving in Louisiana
to start a new life, she soon
falls for the brooding,
otherworldly Sébastien Saint
Germain, whose circle of
friends don’t seem to be
human. Then a series of
gruesome murders begin, and
Celine finds herself a target.
The latter part’s not that
bad: the gory deaths are great,
and the whodunnit at least
keeps you guessing. But as
for the romance... oh dear.
Bastien’s handsome face sets
Celine “adrift in a stormy sea”;
his eyes are “like glittering
coins”; his beauty is “like
a lightning storm behind
a bank of clouds”. And so it
goes... on and on and on. By
the time they finally snog, all
you want is for the serial killer
to reveal himself, murder all
the similes and bugger off
again. In one word: ouch.
Jayne Nelson
REISSUES
Though it’s a follow-up to
2017’s I Am Behind You,
John Ajvide Lindqvist’s
latest works as a
standalone read. Drawing
on his
youthful
experiences
as a
struggling
magician,
I ALWAYS
FIND YOU
( , out now,
riverrun) sees the author
and his neighbours
discovering a slimy entity
in the shower block of
their flats, one which
allows them to live out
their fantasies. We said:
“Lindqvist’s most
gruesome work – David
Cronenberg and Society
spring to mind. It’s
disturbing and
intermittently fascinating,
but doesn’t
really feel
coherent.”
Wray Delaney
(aka Sally
Gardner) riffs
on Beauty
And The
Beast in THE BEAUTY OF
THE WOLF ( , 14
November, HQ), switching
up the genders as a
handsome half-faerie chap
named Beau sees the
beauty in a monstrous
creature called Randa. We
said: “Beautifully written,
and a breeze to read, but
it’s also far too long… If
Gardner wanted to appeal
to an older audience, she’s
failed slightly, as this still
feels like a
book for
young
teenagers.”
Finally,
BROKEN
STARS (
, 14
November, Head Of Zeus)
collects 16 stories by
contemporary Chinese SF
writers; editor Ken Liu
translated Hugo winner
The Three-Body Problem.
It also includes three
essays on the Chinese SFF
scene. Our reviewer wasn’t
impressed: “Too many of
the tales lack satisfying
drama and compelling
characters, reading as dry
intellectual exercises
rather than cohesive,
developed narratives.”
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 103

DOCTOR WHO:
THE TARGET
STORYBOOK
RELEASED OUT NOW!
432 pages | Hardback/ebook
Editor Steve Cole
Publisher BBC Books
There are 15 tales in this
bumper book of Who fiction
– one for each Doctor, plus a
second for the 13th.
“Gatecrashers” from Joy
Wilkinson kicks things off.
As the writer of “The
Witchfinders”, she has a keen
ear for the voices of the current
TARDIS team, and the plot
– in which the fam arrive
in a mysterious mall – is
appropriately Season 11.
Another Jodie-era writer,
Vinay Patel, contributes
a lovely, if melancholy, prequel
to his episode, “Demons Of
The Punjab”.
The Sixth Doctor himself,
Colin Baker, pens “Interstitial
Insecurity”. He has a good grasp
of his Doctor’s tone of voice, but
the story is a fairly slight
interlude in the “Trial Of A
Time Lord” season. Matthew
“Adric” Waterhouse’s “The
Dark River” is a historical that
finds Nyssa and Adric on an epic
journey to freedom with an
escaped slave. It’s enjoyably
atmospheric, if a bit overwritten.
The most eye-catching
offering is the final work by
Who legend Terrance Dicks.
“Save Yourself” is a Second
Doctor tale set after “The War
Games”, with the Doctor once
more facing that story’s villain.
It’s not his best work by a long
way, but there’s a nostalgic joy
in seeing one of the show’s true
giants contributing to its lore
one last time. Will Salmon
104 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
FULL THROTTLE
Prince Of Darkness
RELEASED OUT NOW!
477 pages | Hardback/ebook/audiobook
Author Joe Hill
Publisher Gollancz
Joe Hill’s latest collection of
short stories – which includes two
co-written with his father Stephen
King – further establishes him as
a talent on a par with pa. Written
between 2006 and 2019, these 13
tales cover a lot of ground, but
there are certain recurring
characteristics. Unforgivingly
bleak endings. An interest in
people with extreme points of view
(be they militia-type separatists,
big-game hunters, or Abu Graibh
torturers). Most happily: a knack
for creating characters who seem
utterly plausible.
Four tales stand out. The
bittersweet “All I Care About Is
You”, in which a teen in a
clockpunk future activates a robot
to help celebrate her birthday,
economically paints a vivid world
Hill’s
characters
are utterly
plausible
BOOKS
ALSO OUT
As always, there are lots
more intriguing books we
couldn’t squeeze in! Garth
Nix’s first “adult” fantasy
book, ANGEL MAGE (out
now, Gollancz), centres on
the manipulative Liliath, a
woman who can summon
angels to make them do
her bidding, and her
quest to be reunited with
the love of her life. The
Three-Body Problem
author Cixin Liu’s 2003
novel THE SUPERNOVA
ERA (out now, Head Of
Zeus) has finally made it
to the UK. A wave of
radiation from a
supernova hits Earth.
Everyone over 13 will be
dead within a year. How
will the kids cope with
running the world? Coffee
table book STAR TREK:
THE OFFICIAL GUIDE TO
THE ANIMATED SERIES
(out now, Titan) looks at
by spraying about coinages like every episode of the ’70s
“hideware”, “sparklefroth” and show in detail, drawing on
production documents,
“drop bubbles”; Hill should drip a concept sketches, and
toe into science fiction more often. interviews with the likes
The timey-wimey premise of “Late of DC Fontana and David
Returns” – in which a mobile Gerrold. The author of
library is visited by lenders from The Bad Movie Bible is
behind THE A-Z OF
the past – is daffy, but the results SUPERHERO MOVIES
prove surprisingly moving. You can (out now, HE Publishing),
easily picture “Faun”’s clever, which has capsule
downbeat mash-up of Narnia and reviews of over 1000.
Refreshingly, many are
“The Most Dangerous Game” obscurities from places
working on the big screen. And like Bangladesh and the
King collaboration “In The Tall Philippines. Do Men In
Grass” (now a Netflix film), about Black and Doctor Who
a field that entraps passers-by, is really count, though?
Hmm… Eat like the
powerfully eerie – particularly in Winchester brothers with
the understated way it conveys the SUPERNATURAL: THE
stomach-churningly unspeakable. OFFICIAL COOKBOOK
A couple of stories are slight: (out now, Titan); it
includes recipes for
werewolf tale “Wolverton Station” the likes of Garth’s
feels like little more than a punning Roadhouse Potatoes and
gag. And “Twittering From The Judy’s Chicken-Shaped
Circus Of The Dead” (think Roast Chicken. Finally,
zombies plus social media) hasn’t FIRE, ICE, AND PHYSICS
(out now, The MIT
much to offer beyond its gimmicky Press) uses Game Of
format. But there are no clunkers, Thrones as a
and lots of images that hook in your gateway to
mind: fairground carousel horses discussing
fascinating
coming to life; seeds scattered on
a mother’s grave growing into her
topics like
the Earth’s
head, Bodysnatchers-style; the jet
trails of ICBMs blossoming
elliptical
orbit, the
science of an
beneath a passenger jet. Ian Berriman
The inspiration for “Wolverton Station”
ice wall, and
the biology of
came when Hill’s train passed through
Wolverhampton on a UK tour.
beheading
someone.
First
Read
AN EXTRACT FROM
A NEW BOOK
SKEIN IS
After Marianne receives her invitation to
Skein Island, her husband David fears that
she may not return… Every story needs an
ending, whatever the cost.
NOBODY WOULD TAKE HIM.
The sky began to darken, and the few
fishermen left on the quay all told him the
same thing: men weren’t allowed there; it
wasn’t worth the money David was offering to
break the rules; couldn’t he tell that a storm
was coming? They were battening down the
boats, and heading inside for the evening. But
when David followed them into The Ship and
Pilot, a small, grey pub set back from the
harbour wall, he found a mass of old men with
grizzled, suspicious faces, eyeing him as he
stood in the doorway.
David took a few steps forward. The small
fire in the grate was barely flickering, and the
wood upon it hissed. Hanging from the ceiling,
suspended with catgut, were dusty bottles
containing delicate sailing ships built from
matchsticks and tiny scraps of cloth. On the
mantelpiece – one long stretch of dark, uneven
wood – sat four small cubes. Red, blue, yellow,
green. He felt the pull of them.
He stepped back, nearly fell over his own
feet, and hurried outside, to their laughter.
In the harbour, the solitary boats were
pulling at the hefty blue ropes that moored
them, tossing their heads like horses at the
approaching rain, visible over the channel.
David stood against the thick sea wall and
looked around, at the hills, pressing close. He
couldn’t return to Wootton Bassett, not now
he’d seen the cubes here. They were a secret
that every other man somehow understood,
and from which he had been excluded. Finding
Marianne, conquering this adventure, was
more important than ever. If he could solve one
mystery, he could solve them all.
“Night’s getting in.”
So he had been under observation; a young,
heavy-set man was watching him from a small,
blue fishing boat. A stuffed doll, like a
scarecrow, was tied tight by its waist and neck
to the prow. The man was heaving up a rope,
106 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
hand over hand. David watched
as an empty, crusted lobster pot,
stinking of the bottom of the sea,
broke free from the waves and
was tossed on to the deck.
“Will you take me out?” David
said. The scarecrow had been
dressed in a blue overall and a
sou’wester. In contrast, the
young fisherman wore black
jeans and a grey ski-jacket,
modern, stylish. His long curly
hair flopped around his ears in
the wind.
“I’m just putting her to bed.”
He didn’t have much of a local
accent.
“I’ll pay anything you like.”
“Where do you want to go, eh?
Night fishing?”
“Skein Island.”
The fisherman laughed
without making a sound. “You
can’t get on there, mate.”
“Just to look. From the boat.
Just to sail round it once and
come back again.”
“It’ll be a rough ride.”
“That’s fine,’ David said. He
got out his wallet, sensing
victory. ‘How much?”
“We’ll do that later. Come over
and put on a jacket.” The man set
out a metal walkway from the
side of the boat to the quay, and
David edged across its slippery
surface.
He had sailed before, at South
Cerney, when he was a teenager
– a friend’s father had kept a boat
moored there – but this grey sea,
choppy with intention, was very
different from that calm stretch of water. The
boat bucked underneath his feet as they hit the Women were seen as a mysterious foe back
mouth of the harbour, and as the rain picked up then, lying in wait across a wasteland of years,
so did the swell of the waves. David stood next
to the fisherman at the wheel in the tiny cabin,
undecorated apart from a small ceramic
mermaid placed on the sill of the window, her
The Author
Aliya Whiteley lives
in West Sussex. She is
the author of The
Loosening Skin and
The Beauty and has
written a variety of
novels, short stories
and non-fiction which
have been published in
places such as The
Guardian, Interzone,
McSweeney’s Internet
Tendency, Black Static
and Strange Horizons,
and anthologies such
as Unsung Stories’ This
Dreaming Isle and
Lonely Planet’s Better
Than Fiction I and II.
She’s been shortlisted
for the Arthur C Clarke
Award, Shirley Jackson
Award, British Fantasy
and British Science
Fiction awards, the
John W Campbell
Award, and a James
Tiptree Jr award.
Her stories are
unpredictable – they
can be terrifying,
tender, ferocious and
deeply funny.
which had to remain hidden from view.
shrouded in fog. Not quite real.
“There it is,” said the fisherman.
Ahead, cliffs rose from the sea, close and
dark. David watched the fisherman turn the
arms stretched up, exposing
enormous breasts with red-
tipped nipples. The wheel was
turned first one way, then the
other, apparently without
thought, somehow making sense
of the ocean.
“Your wife out there, is she?”
The fisherman nodded. “We get
’em every now and again.
Lovesick types, jealous types.
You don’t look like the usual.”
“What do they usually look
like?”
“Thick. It’s no good depending
on women that way, is it? Either
you’re on top or they are. Dog eat
dog. Eat bitch.”
In a fit of pure malice David
said, “Married, are you?” already
knowing the answer.
The man gave his silent laugh,
shoulders shrugging. “You won’t
catch me playing that game.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“You mean that’s what you
used to say. He was right, of
course. During A Levels, sitting
in the common room with their
legs slung over the frayed arms
of the chairs and a ghetto blaster
playing rap or indie as loud as
they dared, he and his friends
had talked about girls as the
enemy. To be overwhelmed,
taken, given what for, then left
if they became too demanding
in some way that was never
specified. It had felt expected of
them to talk that way, no matter
what they felt inside about
themselves or their sexuality,
 SPONSORED
SKEIN ISLAND

LAND
A POWERFUL AND
DISTURBING LOOK
AT THE ROLES WE
PLAY, AND HOW
THEY FORM AND
DIVIDE US by Aliya Whiteley

wheel, and the boat struggled against the couldn’t hold her; the cubes had shown him At first he kept his balance, tilting his body to
waves, drawing parallel to the island. “Once that. A woman’s power to control men – keep upright, riding the motion of the boat.
around and we’re heading back.” Marianne, Mags, the damsel from the back Then it bucked, so hard and fast, like a bull
David nodded. “I’ll just go out on the deck, room of The Cornerhouse – beat back the underneath him, and his thighs hit the rail and
get a better look.” strength of his grip every time. his body went over, turning a full somersault
“Hold on to the rail, then.” He let go of the rail. into the rain. The liquid ice of the water
He slid back the cabin encased him and froze him, instantly, leaving
door and stepped on to no way to move, no way to
the deck. The rain and think. When he surfaced,
wind hit him like sucking up a breath as huge
an attack; he braced as the sky, he realised his
himself, managed to lifejacket was the only thing
close the door behind that had saved him, bringing
him, and gripped the him up to the surface.
rail, feeling terror of the What are you doing? said
deep seep into him. Marianne, quite clearly, in
Marianne was on his ear. He couldn’t reply.
that island, and he The waves slapped his face,
couldn’t get closer. He ripped at his hair and throat.
had harboured visions of The boat wasn’t close; he
diving in, swimming couldn’t see it anywhere.
across clear water with The sea kept dragging him
powerful strokes of his onwards, insistent, and
arms, to find her on the suddenly a black rock loomed
shore, waiting, with a up at his face. He threw out
look in her eyes that his hands, caught it, felt the
unmistakably meant slam and the scrape of his
I love you. But the walls body against it, couldn’t hold
of the cliffs, the black on, and was tossed back.
rocks that surrounded Stinging ribbons of pain twined
them, were a rebuttal around his palms and wrists,
of his imaginings. He and then he was thrown at the
couldn’t see anything rock again. This time he didn’t
but the rock face. get his arms out; his head
He looked at his hands connected with the rock, and
on the rail. The strength there was no pain, no sea, no
of them, holding on. island. Just the sense that
The man at the library something had to be done, didn’t
had tried to make it have to be done? And
Marianne obey, bend to Marianne saying, David, David,
his will, and she had told what are you doing? over and
him no. How had she over in his left ear, her voice so
done that? All the power sad, so sorry, that all he wanted
in his body was nothing was to hold her and tell her that
compared to her – her everything was going to be—
ability to change the
situation, take life and Find out what happens next in
shake it out, make it work Skein Island, available now from
out differently. His hands Titan Books, titanbooks.com.

DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 107


BATMAN: CURSE OF
THE WHITE KNIGHT
Unhappy Valley
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Publisher DC Comics
Writer/artist Sean Gordon Murphy
ISSUES 1-3 Sequels can be risky
propositions – especially when
they follow a story like Batman:
White Knight, which seemed
largely designed as a standalone.
The acclaimed 2017–2018 DC
miniseries followed a suddenly
“sane” Joker as he embarked on
a quest to save Gotham City, but
while a couple of minor plot
threads were left dangling, the
climax of the story was conclusive
enough that a follow-up didn’t
seem necessary.
108 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
However, we now have Curse Of
The White Knight, a new eight-part
miniseries. Thankfully, what could
have been a superfluous cash-in is
instead finding fresh territory to
explore in its edgy and political
take on the Caped Crusader.
The story picks up with the
Joker’s sane alter-ego Jack Napier
having been seemingly banished
forever, and the Clown Prince of
Crime embarking on a new quest
to take down his nemesis Batman
once and for all.
To do this, he enlists the help of
an unexpected throwback to the
’90s era of Batman comics:
Jean-Paul Valley, a psychologically
damaged war veteran with links to
Feet on the
desk, eh? This
guy is such
a rebel.
COMICS
an ancient religious order. As the
Joker manoeuvres Valley into
becoming the masked anti-Bat
vigilante Azrael, his plan is
connected with a dark secret
that’s lurking in the past of the
Wayne family…
Once again the story’s status as
an out-of-continuity Elseworlds-
style tale means the stakes go
higher than expected, with
life-and-death consequences for
major characters. It also means
that writer/artist Sean Gordon
Murphy can use the story to pose
the more difficult questions about
Batman’s effect on society that
normally get ignored. The result,
in these opening three issues, is
a sharp, provocative read that
still functions as a fast-paced
Batman adventure.
Murphy doesn’t ram the subtext
home with a sledgehammer,
instead relying on eye-catching
set-pieces and a rapidly escalating
series of threats, as well as the
same engaging characterisation
that made the original White
Knight series such a strong read
(especially when it comes to his
take on Harley Quinn).
Of course, Murphy is also one
of the best comic artists around,
and his distinctive, hyper-stylised
approach is in full effect here,
rendering the quiet character
moments and epic action
confrontations with tremendous
visual impact. It’s hard to see
exactly which direction the story
will take in the remaining five
issues, but so far Curse Of The
White Knight looks set to be
a worthy sequel, as well as a
thrilling and well-crafted
superhero adventure in its own
right. Saxon Bullock
For the upcoming third White Knight
volume, Murphy is planning a take on
animated TV series Batman Beyond.
SEA OF STARS
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Publisher Image Comics
Writers Dennis Hallum,
Jason Aaron
Artist Stephen Green
ISSUES 1-4 Sea Of Stars is
an unusual comic, with an
equally unusual genesis.
Writers Dennis Hallum and
Jason Aaron planned to work
together with artist Stephen
Green on a deep space saga,
but both had wildly different
ideas about the tone they
should take. Hallum was keen
to tell a tough, pulpy story
about a space trucker. Aaron,
on the other hand, wanted to
write a cosmic fairy tale about
a child with magic powers.
Somehow, sticking these two
contrasting approaches
together works beautifully.
Gil Starx is couriering
expensive cargo through deep
space with son Kadyn when
their ship is attacked and
devoured by a giant monster.
Separated, Kadyn falls in with
some (mostly) benevolent
aliens, while Gil is dragged
through a series of far less
pleasant encounters with
carnivorous plants and
attacking aliens as he tries to
find a way back to his son.
Green’s gloriously expressive
art and Rico Renzi’s cosmic
colours unite these separate
strands perfectly. Sea Of Stars
never feels incoherent or
disjointed. Instead, it feels like
a fairy tale with bite. Hayao
Miyazaki’s influence is clear,
both in the book’s sense of joy
and adventure, and in its
emotional honesty – both Gil
and Kadyn are struggling with
grief. The story is fun and
funny, but there’s a real sense of
danger here too. Will Salmon

HISTORY OF THE
MARVEL UNIVERSE
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Publisher Marvel Comics
Writer Mark Waid
Artists Javier Rodriguez,
Alvaro Lopez
ISSUES 1-4 The Marvel
Universe is often criticised for
being impenetrable to
newcomers; this series is an
ideal primer for anyone who
wants to catch up on the House
Of Ideas’ eight decades, though
the sheer volume of characters
and significant events might
leave you feeling giddy.
Expertly condensing
Marvel’s continuity, Mark Waid
brings a boisterous, Stan
Lee-esque tone as he neatly
integrates the original stories
with the retconned historical
developments of more recent
issues, such as Bucky’s
transformation into the Winter
Soldier. Told in retrospect by
Galactus to Franklin Richards
at the end of time, the six-parter
could do with some sense of
narrative propulsion to stop it
becoming a relentless cavalcade
of important happenings,
though the World Eater adds a
nice personal touch to issue #3,
recalling his clashes with the
Fantastic Four.
The star of the show is Javier
Rodriguez’s sumptuous art,
which combines dynamic
layouts with fluid figurework.
Evocatively colouring his own
pencils over Alvaro Lopez’s
inks, Rodriguez deftly channels
the work of classic artists like
Jack Kirby, Dave Cockrum and
John Romita while succeeding
in making the book his own. So
if the text is occasionally
overwhelming, you’ll still enjoy
the detailed art. Stephen Jewell
Sadly, rock
stabbing did
not become an
Olympic event.
ONCE AND FUTURE
A gran adventure
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Publisher BOOM! Studios
Writer Kieron Gillen
Artist Dan Mora
ISSUES 1-3 Arthurian fantasy
never seems to go out of fashion
for long, but it takes more than
throwing medieval knights into the
present day to give the legendary
tale a fresh modern spin.
Thankfully, writer Kieron Gillen
has a genuinely exciting take on
King Arthur in Once And Future, a
new ongoing series that melds
present-day political issues with
pulp fantasy in a gleefully
entertaining fashion.
This first six-issue arc begins
with a gang of British Nationalists
stealing an ancient historical
artefact, and museum curator
Duncan McGuire discovering that
his grandmother Bridgette has
gone on the run. The reason for
Features
plenty of
humour
this is that Bridgette used to hunt
monsters, and knows that the
artefact – the scabbard for the
sword known as Excalibur – could
be used to bring King Arthur back
to life, which would be bad news
for everybody.
Taking the high-octane fantasy
action of films like 1999’s The
Mummy and adding a resonant
subtext, Gillen’s script isn’t afraid
to highlight the story’s darker
edges, but these opening three
issues also feature plenty of
humour, colourful action and
characterisation. The interplay
between the gun-toting Bridgette
and her grandson is deliciously
good fun, and their entertaining
double-act is heightened by artist
Dan Mora’s brilliant visuals, which
effortlessly switch from goofy
humour to lurid pulp horror.
Once And Future already feels
like the kind of inventive and
compulsively thrilling adventure
that we simply don’t get enough of,
and the second half of this opening
arc seems unlikely to disappoint.
Saxon Bullock
The main relationship was partly inspired
by Gillen’s with his working class, Irish
gran, who lived around the corner.
COFFIN BOUND
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Publisher Image Comics
Writer Dan Watters
Artist Dani
ISSUES 1-3 For anyone who’s
ever read Neil Gaiman’s The
Sandman and thought “I wish
this was more like a trashy ’70s
grindhouse film”, new ongoing
series Coffin Bound is here to
fulfil your bizarre fantasy
requirements. It most closely
resembles The Sandman’s
occasional moments of extreme
horror, catapulting us into a
world that’s sometimes a little
too disturbing.
The story follows punky
drifter Izzy, who’s targeted by
an unstoppable killer and
responds by setting out to
destroy all evidence that
she ever lived. Accompanied
by a mysterious skull-
headed figure, Izzy faces off
against psychotic visionaries
and the terrifying Earth-
Eater, but her fatalistic
quest also has darkly
unpredictable consequences.
Writer Dan Watters employs
a wide selection of unsettling
and gory concepts in these first
three issues – most notably a
strip club where dancers
actually peel off their skin. He’s
so successful at conjuring up a
grimy, unpleasant atmosphere
that you may need a shower
after reading, but the book
struggles to fuse its more
lyrical, thematic elements with
the trash-goth aesthetic.
While artist Dani’s vivid
visuals give the story lots of
impact, it’s hard to emotionally
connect with Izzy as a
character, leaving Coffin Bound
as a road trip that’s both
provocative and frustrating.
Saxon Bullock
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 109

CONCRETE GENIE
Painting the town
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Format reviewed Playstation 4
Publisher Sony Interactive
Entertainment
Moving a controller
VIDEOGAME
in different directions isn’t
the most conventional way to
paint beautiful artwork, but
Concrete Genie manages to make it
feel like the most natural thing in
the world.
Set in the fictional seaside town
of Denska, which is covered in
darkness as a result of an
environmental disaster, it sees you
taking on the role of a bullied
teenager called Ash, who likes
to draw and paint in his
sketchbook as a way of escaping
his troubles. The imaginative
teen likes to create magical
beings called Genies, except
they’re not the lamp-dwelling
110 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019
kind who grant wishes. In Ash’s
world, the Genies act as whimsical
companions, whose different
elemental powers help him
progress through the story and
interact with his artwork.
When you first meet the young
boy, he’s being pestered by the
town’s bullies, who rip apart his
sketchbook and throw its pages
into the air. While Ash chases after
his lost pages, one of his Genie
paintings suddenly comes to life,
and guides him to a magical
paintbrush that has the power to
purify the darkness. With the
paintbrush in hand, you set out to
restore the town by painting
Explores
the effects
of bullying
vibrant pictures on its gloomy
walls using the DualShock
controller’s motion sensors.
If your artistic repertoire only
extends to stick figures and you’re
worried about being able to paint
well, you can rest easy knowing
Concrete Genie will make you feel
as talented as Vincent van Gogh.
Developer Pixelopus’ take on
painting by numbers sees you
using set art designs that you
select and bring to life by moving
your controller. While it might
sound simple, combining designs
to create your own little works of
art is delightfully entertaining.
The story explores difficult
subjects like the effects of bullying
and the impact of environmental
concerns with tact, and the bullies
themselves are refreshingly
portrayed from a point of view
that you don’t see very often.
With its generous strokes of
creativity, swirls of heartwarming
charm and streaks of animated
colour, Concrete Genie looks
utterly gorgeous and plays like
a dream. Heather Wald
The main character is called Ash because
VFX artist Ashwin Kumar came up with
the basic bullied kid/painting concept.
Banksy was
clearly in a good
mood today.
GAMES & STUFF
WARHAMMER
UNDERWORLDS:
BEASTGRAVE
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Number of players Two
Publisher Games Workshop
TABLETOP GAME This is the third
“season” of Warhammer
Underworlds – Games
Workshop’s deck-building/
miniatures hybrid game. The
system has evolved significantly
over the last few years, and this
starter set offers the most
nuanced version so far.
The setting has moved on
too. The Beastgrave is a
nightmarish living mountain
with a supernatural pull on
warriors, who find themselves
drawn there to do battle. Two of
the warbands are Grashrak’s
Ravagers – a gang of feral
Beastmen – and Skaeth’s Wild
Hunt, our first glimpse of the
mysterious Kurnothi. These
are, of course, the models you
get in the box, with further
teams to be released in the
coming months.
Players build a deck of
Objective and Power cards and
deploy their miniatures. The
aim is to gain Glory Points by
fulfilling objectives, claiming
territory or taking out enemies.
The introduction of Lethal
Hexes adds a twist, meaning
that previously safe objectives
have the potential to turn into
deadly pits that devour your
warriors. Another development
is the inclusion of “pre-built”
decks in the box. Given that
there’s almost 1,000 cards, it’s
a neat way to welcome new
players. This is a refinement
rather than a reinvention, but
a welcome one. Will Salmon
THE GATES OF
HELL TRILOGY
RELEASED 29 NOVEMBER
96 minutes | Vinyl
Label Demon Music Group
SOUNDTRACK This “Vault Of
Horror” release brings together
scores for three outrageously
gory early-’80s efforts by Italian
director Lucio Fulci.
Fabio Frizzi’s cues for The
Beyond are the class act here.
Combining falling-out-of-a-
window glissandos and
keyboard groans which could
be undead vocalisations with
tiptoe-ing piano, monkish
chanting and beguiling flute
passages, they’re better than a
film where tarantulas chew a
bloke’s face off deserves.
Frizzi’s work on intestine-
vomiting zombie horror City Of
The Living Dead is also strong.
Prettily-picked guitar loops rub
shoulders with insistently
plodding drums; meanwhile, a
maniac hammers a single piano
key, perhaps in protest against
the Level 42-esque slap bass.
Walter Rizzati/Alessandro
Blonksteiner’s score for
Lovecraftian nasty The House
By The Cemetery is the least
listener-friendly, heavy on
cacophonous crashing about
on the keyboard; a track like
“Blonk Fascia” brings to mind
a drunk stumbling about the
bedroom, trapped in trouser
legs they’ve failed to shake off.
All three have been out
before, on Death Waltz, but this
set has extra selling points: it’s a
case-bound book package, with
liner notes by FrightFest’s Alan
Jones and art by poster ledge
Graham Humphreys. The
psychedelic-puke stylings of the
vinyl seem more a disincentive
to buy, mind. Ian Berriman
DOCTOR WHO:
THE LOST STORIES
Only 35/33 years late...
RELEASED NOVEMBER
122/134 minutes | CD/download
Publisher Big Finish
AUDIO DRAMA Recreating stories
written for the classic series but
never actually filmed, Big Finish’s
Lost Stories range allows us a
glimpse into the might-have-beens
of the show’s past.
This month’s first release,
Nightmare Country , instead getting caught up in a
written for season 21 by “Warriors’
Gate"/"Terminus” writer Stephen
Gallagher, begins with Peter
Davison’s Fifth Doctor trapped
in a simulated reality, helping a
people with no home of their own
to create one from scratch. There
are some interesting parallels with
immigration issues, with the
reality engineers welcomed when
they’re needed and abandoned the
moment they’re not. The origin of
the story’s monsters is interesting
(if not entirely original), but it
never quite escapes from the fact
that it’s mostly set within a
simulation inside the TARDIS, and
the stakes never really feel that
high.
More dynamic is Wally K Daly’s
The Ultimate Evil , inhabitants of a mansion. The
a story previously turned into a
Target novelisation, written for
the season canned after Doctor
Who was put on hiatus in 1985.
Colin Baker and Nicola Bryant star
as the Sixth Doctor and Peri, still
looking for a relaxing holiday but
burgeoning conflict between the
Tranquelans and Amelierons – a
conflict being exploited by an
unscrupulous trader the Doctor’s
encountered before. There are
some discomforting domestic
violence parallels early on (will
Peri ever escape being attacked by
men who insist they couldn’t help
themselves?), and the climax feels
somewhat rushed, but it’s an
engaging enough recreation of the
show’s past that captures the feel
of the era well. Rhian Drinkwater
On submitting his pitch, Gallagher was
told, “You’ve sent us another million-dollar
movie and we just can’t do them!”
HOMELESS BODIES
& OTHER STORIES
RELEASED OUT NOW!
Circa 50 mins per episode
Publisher Audible
PODCAST London’s Wellcome
Collection is a museum and
library, full of artefacts arranged
around themes of life, death,
health and medicine. This
anthology takes objects from
the building and uses them
as the jumping-off point for
six sinister tales (sort of…).
Not all of the stories are horror,
but they all share a certain
goth sensibility.
We say “sort of” because the
title piece by Sarah Moss isn’t
strictly fiction, more a poetic
rumination on time and tattoos.
“Vanitas” by Laura Purcell
focuses on a memento mori,
a wax skull that seems to wield
uncanny effects on the
narration is a little “Cor blimey,
Mary Poppins!”, but it’s an
effectively insidious tale.
Andrew Michael Hurley’s
“The Fool” follows Jennifer,
a devoted wife who, on
discovering that her husband’s
having an affair, starts to hear
voices urging her to commit
violent acts. Inspired by a
trepanned skull, it’s an acidic
and ambiguous piece. Is
Jennifer succumbing to
madness, or possessed?
In contrast, “Brothers &
Sisters” by Imogen Hermes
Gower and “Scold’s Bridle” by
Oyinkan Braithwaite are dark
historical tales. “Master &
Student” by Haroun Khan
wasn’t available at the time of
writing. If you have a taste for
the macabre, then this is an
engagingly morbid listen for
winter nights. Will Salmon
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 111

As his Martians prepare to invade our screens again, we test your
knowledge of the granddaddy of modern-day SF
QUESTION 1
What do the initials HG stand for?
QUESTION 2
Which ’80s Doctor Who story
features a young HG Wells as
a supporting character?
QUESTION 3
What relation is Simon Wells, the
director of the 2002 film of The
Time Machine, to HG?
QUESTION 4 PICTURE QUESTION
Supply the title missing from this
film poster.
QUESTION 5
Which historical figure does
Malcolm McDowell’s HG Wells
follow to 1979 in the film Time
After Time?
QUESTION 6
In which version of The War Of
The Worlds do the alien invaders
come not from Mars, but from
a planet called Mor-Tax?
QUESTION 7
What’s the name of the gravity-
negating substance that’s used to
travel to the Moon in First Men In
The Moon?
QUESTION 8 PICTURE QUESTION
In which TV series would you find
this version of HG Wells?
QUESTION 9
Which hip hop group took their
name from a phrase in The Island
Of Dr Moreau (and also sampled
some dialogue from the 1977
movie version)?
QUESTION 10
Which HG Wells novel is the
Master seen reading in the 1973
Doctor Who story “Frontier In
Space”?
Blastermind
The SFX quiz
HG WELLS
Quizmaster Ian Berriman, Deputy Editor
QUESTION 4
QUESTION 12
QUESTION 11
And what HG Wells novel is the
Doctor seen reading in the 1996
Doctor Who TV movie?
QUESTION 12 PICTURE QUESTION
Name this Wells-related movie
from 1940.
QUESTION 13
Orson Welles’s panic-inspiring
1933 radio broadcast of The War Of
The Worlds featured actors from
which repertory company?
QUESTION 14
Who was the narrator of Jeff
Wayne’s 1978 musical version of
The War Of The Worlds?
QUESTION 15
In which year did a Ben Liebrand
remix of Jeff Wayne’s “The Eve Of
The War” reach number three in
the UK singles chart: ’87, ’89 or ’91?
QUESTION 8
QUESTION 16
QUESTION 16 PICTURE QUESTION
20 Griffin
Who directed this film? 18 Warehouse 13 19 Ian Edginton
written sequels to The Time Machine
QUESTION 17 16 Byron Haskin 17 They’ve all
Theatre 14 Richard Burton 15 1989
What do the authors Stephen
Invisible Woman 13 The Mercury
Baxter, KW Jeter and Christopher
Worlds 11 The Time Machine 12 The
9 House Of Pain 10 The War Of The
Priest have in common? TV series 7 Cavorite 8 Lois & Clark
5 Jack the Ripper 6 The 1988-1990
QUESTION 18 3 Great grandson 4 Things To Come
1 Herbert George 2 “Timelash”
Which TV series featured Answers
a recurring character called
© ABC, UNIVERSAL PICTURES, PARAMOUNTPICTURES, GETTY (1)
Helena G Wells, who persuaded How did you do?
her brother to act as a front for
her books? Which HG Wells
character are you?
QUESTION 19 0-5
Morlock
Who wrote Scarlet Traces, the
comic-book sequel to The War Of 6-10
Ape-Man
The Worlds?
11-15
QUESTION 20 Dr Kemp
16-19
In HG Wells’s original 1897 novel, Mr Cavor
what’s the name of the Invisible 20
Man? (Only one needed – Wells The Time Traveller
just gives his surname.)
DECEMBER 2019 | SFX MAGAZINE | 113
TotalRecall Personal recollections of cherished sci-fi

THE DALEK CHRONICLES Dom Carter, Freelance Writer

T
HE CONTINUITY OF DOCTOR WHO IS FULL OF
inconsistencies, but a series of spin-off comics about
the Daleks was the first time that I came across a huge
contradiction to the programme’s lore. Published years
before Davros trundled onto the scene, these comics
include the earliest stab at writing a backstory for Skaro’s finest.
First published in the pages of TV Century 21 (later renamed TV21) in
the mid-’60s, these single-page comics (titled simply The Daleks) were
gathered together and reprinted by Marvel Comics in 1994 as The Dalek
Chronicles. Their authorship is the subject of some debate: Terry Nation’s
name is plastered all over the title panels, but Who story editor David
Whittaker and the editor of TV Century 21 are also said to have had input.
Even today, The Dalek Chronicles still makes for heady reading. This is
thanks in no small part to the stunning artwork by Richard Jennings and
Ron Turner (Eric Eden bridges the changeover between the two by
filling in for a single story, but fails to make as great an impression).
Jennings’s atmospheric style gives the Dalek comics the grandeur of
strips like The Trigan Empire, while Turner’s colourful illustrations
explode from the page like pieces of Pop art. Some say that
Turner’s art gives the strip a sense of verisimilitude, but for my
money, you can’t beat Jennings. I’ve even got his “anatomy of
a Dalek” diagram on my wall as a framed print.
Mercifully, The Dalek Chronicles is Doctor-free. This gives the
Daleks a rare opportunity to develop their own character. The globe-
headed Dalek Emperor – which influenced the look of the character in
Sylvester McCoy tale “Remembrance Of The Daleks” – is the closest
thing the strip has to a protagonist, and you almost feel an attachment to
the pepperpots as you watch them battle murderous plants or fend off
the blue-skinned Monstrons.
The Dalek Chronicles isn’t the full story, though. Select TV Century 21
strips were republished in Dalek annuals, which also contained comics
not included in the Marvel collection. The rights issues surrounding the
Daleks are a knotty affair, but come on BBC, can’t you release a complete
collection? You’ve got one guaranteed purchase right here.
Dom never makes a decision without feeding info into the Brain Machine.

Fact Attack! SEE YOU

The Dalek Chronicles cost Here, instead of Davros, The final strip ends with An unfinished follow-up NEXT MONTH!

the princely sum of £3.99
back in 1994, but today
a decent copy on eBay will
set you back around £70.
the creators of the universe’s
most-feared war machines
were two humanoid Daleks
called Zolfian and Yarvelling.
the Daleks locating Earth and
heading off to invade. A
possible tie-in to “The Dalek
Invasion Of Earth”?
4 DEC
story illustrated by Turner,
“Deadline To Doomsday”,
was completed and published
in fan mag Vworp Vworp!
DETAILS ON
PAGE 29

114 | SFX MAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019