Unhappy teenagers often find their way to science fiction, one way or another. It’s hardly surprising that a genre laden with metaphors of loss, loneliness and longing for connection should be attractive to young people struggling to find their place in a world that seems to resent their very existence. Few such troubled kids have
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Set in small-town America and concerning intergalactic organisms taking over humankind via emotionless replicates who ‘get you when you sleep’, Jack Finney’s 1954 short story The Body Snatchers was published during the height of McCarthyism. However, its rather inconspicuous author largely dispelled notions that it was an allegory on communism or the importance of individuality. Nevertheless, considering
“We were having coffee one time and Justin’s like: ‘Hey I had this weird idea, it’s about a pill…” says Aaron Moorhead when explaining the inception of his new movie Synchronic. We’re speaking to him and filmmaking partner Justin Benson via the magic of Zoom one early morning. “After that came the idea of the paramedics.”
“We were talking about how it would be to make a horror film that we can write quickly, shoot quickly and release quickly,” Paco Plaza remembers when we ask how his and co-creator Jaume Balagueró’s zombie horror tale [REC] came to be unleashed on viewers back in 2007. “Jaume and me met when we made
In a world where people have the ability to conjure fantastical creatures (pawns) from their hands using a power known as Twine, which is used for a competitive sport that sees two opponents use their creatures in a stadium-set battle, The Game Weavers follows Seojun, a world-class Twine champion and his younger brother Minjun. When
Set in 1999 in a small hospital in Arkansas 12 Hour Shift follows junkie nurse Mandy (Angela Bettis) who is making extra money selling organs of dying patients whose demise she speeds along. But, when her cousin Regina (Chloe Farnworth) misplaces a kidney – which local gangster Nick (Mick Foley) was going to buy –
Set during an apocalyptic future, Radio Life shows a world where The Commonwealth, a knowledge-gathering society on the rise, is locked in a clash of ideas with the Keepers… Should ancient knowledge be kept, learned from and archived? Or should that knowledge be kept in the past where it can’t harm anyone? When a young
Inscape follows rookie agent, Tanta, who has trained her whole life to work for InTech, one of the big corporations who run the city. Her very first mission is a code red: to take her team into the unaffiliated zone just outside InTech’s borders and retrieve a stolen hard drive. It should have been quick
28 days, 6 hours 42 minutes and 12 seconds – that’s how long a dead man in a bunny suit tells Donnie he’s got until the end of the world, and it’s also roughly how long Richard Kelly had to make the film that would define his career… No one could doubt Richard Kelly’s commitment to
Adrian Tchaikovsky’s latest novel, Bear Head, follows the story of Jimmy who has allowed his modified brain to be rented out for an illegal data dump. However, he soon finds out that said data is, in fact, the cloned intelligence of a political refugee called Honey… who is a bear. A thought-provoking political thriller that
Set in the year 2038, Archive follows George Almore (Theo James) who is trying to cope after the untimely death of his wife, Jules (Stacy Martin), while working at a remote, secret facility researching AI technology to build a true, human equivalent android. However, Jules is still present in George’s life… in a way… via a
The Intergalactic Adventures of Max Cloud follows plucky 16-year-old gamer Sarah (Isabelle Allen) and her misadventures as she accidentally becomes a character in her favourite video game. Taking on the avatar of Jake (Elliot James Langridge, Peripheral), she teams up with kickass action hero Max Cloud (Scott Adkins, Accident Man), and his trusty side-kicks as
It’s been 79 years since Noël Coward’s comic play, Blithe Spirit, debuted in West End theatres, and 75 years since he adapted it for the big screen with his friend and revered director David Lean. The supernatural classic starring Rex Harrison, Constance Cummings and Margaret Rutherford won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects; its
Away tells the fantastical story of a boy travelling across an island on a motorcycle, trying to escape a dark spirit and get back home. Along the way he makes a series of connections with different animals and reflects on the possible ways he ended up on the island. Gints Zilbalodis directed, wrote, produced, animated
Released back in 1979, George Miller’s breakout debut, Mad Max, still packs a mighty punch. While Mad Max 2 aka The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and the more recent Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) are better known and more widely seen by fans, the movie kickstarting one of the most iconic
“When my father died there was a big feeling that The Muppets were done,” admits director, Muppeteer and son of Jim, Brian Henson, “clearly that’s what the industry thought.” The early Nineties were a difficult time for Brian, Kermit and the rest of the Muppets. Having been unexpectedly left leaderless in 1990, Brian, then just
Described as ‘the world’s first cinematic advent calendar’ Deathcember is an anthology advent that includes 24 terrifying short films by directors from around the globe. Turning the season of love into a season of fear, Deathcember promises gifts of blood and terror to unwrap for audiences everywhere. Conceived and produced in Germany by Dominic Saxl,
The Office meets Stephen King, dressed up in holiday tinsel, in Secret Santa – a fun, festive, and frightening horror-comedy set during the horror publishing boom of the Eighties, by New York Times best-selling satirist Andrew Shaffer. We spoke to Andrew about setting his novel in the Eighties and how Gremlins, Ghoulies and Critters inspired Secret Santa...
“Technically, We Can Be Heroes is not a sequel to Sharkboy And Lavagirl. It’s in the same world and those characters are in it, but it’s not technically a sequel,” we’re reliably informed by young actor Vivien Lyra Blair when we mistakenly refer to Robert Rodriguez’s latest Netflix adventure as a sequel to his 2005
Predating John Carpenter’s original Halloween by four years, Bob Clark’s 1974 seminal slasher Black Christmas, with its prowling unseen perpetrator’s point-of-view camera moves and creepy predominantly housebound premise, arguablay set the standard for the horror subgenre. Of course, it’s loosely based on the old urban legend of ‘the babysitter and the man upstairs’, concerning a
What happens when you take a sneak peek at the email exchange between two titans of genre? Well read on to find out… To celebrate this year’s releases of two extraordinary novels: Joe Abercrombie’s (pictured above, right) The Trouble With Peace and Andrzej Sapkowski’s (pictured above, left) The Tower of Fools we gave the two
What happens when you take a sneak peek at the email exchange between two titans of genre? Well read on to find out… To celebrate this year’s releases of two extraordinary novels: Joe Abercrombie’s (pictured above, right) The Trouble With Peace and Andrzej Sapkowski’s (pictured above, left) The Tower of Fools we gave the two
Onyx Equinox begins when the Aztec god of the underworld, Mictlantecuhtli, levels a Zapotec city after stealing blood sacrifices from the other gods. This prompts god Quetzalcoatl to close the gates to the underworld. However, he can’t due do this due to said gates being made of obsidian, which is toxic against the gods. So
There’s a look that people get when you mention the words “The Dark Crystal”. It’s usually followed by them telling you that Jim Henson and Frank Oz’s 1982 classic scared the life out of them as children, whether it was the “Trial by stone!” or the poor little Podling having his life essence drained out
Telling the tale of a heckle gone bad, er… Heckle follows comedian Joe Johnson as he and his friends decide to throw an Eighties Halloween party, complete with VHS and no mobile phones. However, when their joke of being part of their own Eighties slasher becomes a little too real, Joe has to find out who’s targeting
Written and directed by Alejandro Fadel, Murder Me, Monster (or Muere, Monstruo, Muere) follows rural police officer Cruz (Victor Lopez), who is investigating the bizarre case of a headless woman found in a remote area by the Andes mountains. Pretty soon, David (Esteban Bigliardi), the husband of Cruz’s lover, Francisca (Tania Casciani), becomes the prime
In 1995, the image of Japanese animation in Britain was very different from what it is now. It was before Pikachu and Naruto, before Death Note and Cowboy Bebop. Studio Ghibli was around in Japan, but only hardcore anime fans knew about it in Britain. The national media called Japanese animation ‘manga movies’, ignoring fans’
Telling the story of Martin (Andy Nyman, pictured above), The Glass Man delves into the life and mind of a man whose perfect life, with the perfect wife (Neve Campbell) is shattered when a loan shark, Pecco (James Cosmo), calls at their home in the dead of night to collect what he’s owed. Pecco offers
Set in an alternate Eighties London, The Left-Handed Booksellers Of London follows the story of Susan Arkshaw, who is looking for the father she has never met. When she stumbles upon Merlin (or perhaps Merlin stumbles upon her…), she discovers a whole new world of magic and… booksellers. Merlin is a young left-handed bookseller (one
Possessor follows the elite, corporate assassin Tasya Vos (Andrea Riseborough, Mandy) who uses brain-implant technology to take control of other people’s bodies to execute high profile targets. However, as she sinks deeper into her latest assignment with Colin Tate (Christopher Abbott), Vos becomes trapped inside a mind that threatens to obliterate her. Written and directed