Review: new 2023 Target DOCTOR WHO Editions

July 2023 and Ebury/BBC Books have issued five more novelisations under the Target banner ... Here's a review of three of them!!

WARRIORS' GATE AND BEYOND by Stephen Gallagher

Stephen is an old pal of mine, and it's great to see one of his classic series stories getting a new novelisation. The history of this one is interesting:  Stephen originally submitted the scripts to the Doctor Who Production Office, and then John Nathan-Turner, the producer at the time, wanted a hefty rewrite, so Stephen apparently took his scripts and cut them up, putting them back together again to create the story as transmitted. He then 'lost' the original version for many years until it turned up again, granting the opportunity for Stephen to return to the source material and to novelise that ...

And so 'Warriors' Gate' gets a new outing. To be honest, it's not that much different from the story as on television, and it reads well. It's very like one of those novelisations by the original author where they have taken the opportunity to expand and develop the scenario and characters to a degree that the television version could not. We still have the Privateer exploiting Time Sensitive Tharils as navigators; there's still the Gateway; and the idea that the Tharils were once the enslavers, and the Gundan robots were created to battle them ... Romana still wants to leave ... K9 is still damaged and needs to stay with Romana, and Adric is still ... well ... Adric. Of all the cast he has the least to do! Not really surprising as he would most likely have been a late addition to the cast/scripts, joining the show just two stories earlier.

What is good is that in this novelisation, the focus is shifted more from Rorvic and his Privateer chums to the Tharils and their predicament. It's a good move. I also liked how one of the great shots from the TV episodes, of the coin spinning in the air and stopping, is used here with a greater explanation and development on how the randomness of tossing a coin can help navigate through the Gateway portals. 

Overall it's a grand story, and as you would expect from a writer of Gallagher's calibre, very well written.

The book also contains a short story: 'The Kairos Ring', which was written as an audio for the BBC to release, and also an even shorter story 'The Little Book of Fate' in which the Doctor meets Romana again ... 

Overall it's a smashing package and well worth a look. If you're wondering, then the original Target novelisation of 'Warriors' Gate' was as by John Lydecker, which was Stephen Gallagher under a pseudonym...

PLANET OF THE OOD by Keith Temple

This novelisation is a revalaton! The TV story 'Planet of the Ood' was not one of the best ... hampered by a somewhat ridiculous CGI chase in the middle between the Doctor and a claw machine in a factory, and reintroducing the Ood from previous adventures, the story seemed a little disposable.

Here though, Temple writes with panache and delivers an excellent book that both expands on and explains much of what happens in the television story. Motivations are developed for all the characters, and Halperin comes over as just horrible and truly deserving of his fate!  Though I have to say that the explanation for just how what happens to him happens to him is not forthcoming. It was a bit of a leap of believability  on television, and remains so here.

But I really enjoyed revisiting the story through the lens of Temple's prose. It's excellently done, and I hope he gets to write some more!

THE WATERS OF MARS by Phil Ford

In contrast to Temple's novelisation, Phil Ford's adaptation of his scripts for the story seems perfunctory. However there is still a great deal to enjoy about this story of a Mars mission which falls foul of an alien entity trapped under the ice beneath the planet's surface, and which seems to be formed of the water itself.

I found myself not really engaging with the Doctor - Temple manages to capture him nicely, but here he seems distant. Maybe it's because there's no companion character for him to bounce off ... but also in the televised story, we also have Graham Harper's assured direction to propel us along, the superb action and direction stopping us from thinking too hard about the story.

Also, in terms of the series, this is the Doctor starting to go off the rails somewhat and to believe that he can do anything, anywhere, anytime and nothing can stop him ... it's the beginning of the end of the tenth Doctor in all honesty. These elements are all nicely explored, and the parallels between all the characters are well drawn. Even the annoying robot 'Gadget' seems to redeem itself.

It's a good, functional novelisation, but perhaps a little too 'by the numbers' in an age where readers are perhaps expecting more from their written-word Who ... I rattled through it quite quickly, and I found myself nodding along to the beats of the original ... it's very much an effective novelisation of what was seen on screen in that regard.

***

As well as these three, also published are KERBLAM! by Pete McTighe and THE ZYGON INVASION by Peter Harness ... Well worth checking out!

Review: What Lies Below (2020)

As an adjunct to my review of The Commuter, here's a film which pretty much delivers nothing of what is promised ...

What Lies Below is touted as a cross between Species and A Quiet Place and is written and directed by Braden R Duemmle (remember my Red Flag that seeing the same name in both those roles tends to point to a lack lustre end result).

The plot follows a mother, Michelle (Mena Suvari), and her teenaged daughter Liberty (Ema Horvath). Liberty returns home to find that her mum has a new boyfriend, the seemingly perfect John Smith (Trey Tucker) ... but as the film unfolds, so John is seen to be creepy as heck, and possibly not even human!

The only nod to Species here is that John is looking to procreate (and in a couple of scenes he has freaky alien feet), and A Quiet Place? No idea where they got that one from. The film drags its length as it's fairly apparent that they had no budget for any effects, CGI or otherwise, and so you're waiting for things to happen, to be revealed and they never are ...

It's also a Red Flag when the various websites which offer 'explanations' of plot points and endings are all over a film, as it simply tends to mean that the film has done a poor job of explaining them in the narrative they are presenting. And sure enough, there are lots of sites explaining 'the boat scene' and the ending of this film.

The film looks nice, and the performances are okay, though everyone seems to be the wrong ages, and the scenes of John watching Liberty shower, and then later on the attempted impregnations are a little too far on the side of the voyeuristic and inappropriate.  So watch it if you like a slow burn film ... some interesting ideas ... but don't expect it all to make total sense ...

And the title?  What exactly does lie below?  Are we talking about under the lake here, or is this a euphemism for what John keeps in his shorts ... we shall never know!

Review: The Commuter (2018)

There's so much substandard fare on Prime, that to come across a film which is actually exciting and interesting is worth shouting about ... The Commuter is one such film.

Over lockdown we have become used to seeing films with very limited casts and set in isolate locations. They're usually possession-type plots, or ghosts, as these are easiest to create on a budget, and many simply have no followable plot and disappointing endings - if you can even get there. You can usually tell this sort of film by the Red Flag that the writer, director, producer is all the same person (and sometimes they also do the make-up, costumes and probably make the tea as well!)

The Commuter however is just pre-lockdown and is written by Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi and Ryan Engle, and directed by Jaume Collet-Serra, who you might remember helmed the superb Blake Lively vehicle The Shallows. The film stars Liam Neeson and Vera Farmiga and has a simple premise. A cop, Michael MacCauley (Liam Neeson), travels the same route to work every day, taking the same train. And so he recognises the same people on the train every day. Now hitting sixty, he is abruptly fired from his job, and travels home in some despair. But. On the train he meets a women, Joanna (Vera Farmiga), who asks him to locate 'Prynne', the alias of an unknown passenger on the train whom Joanna claims has a stolen item. Joanna tells Michael that he will find $25,000 in the bathroom and be paid a further $75,000 when his task is done. She leaves the train, and Michael finds the money in the bathroom ... it all seems genuine. But when he tries to leave the train he realises that his family is in danger, and that whoever Joanna works for is watching his every move.

The film then slowly escalates into a nightmare for Michael as he tries to track down the mysterious Prynne, with deaths and intrigue and a whole 'you cannot trust anyone' vibe. Very enjoyable indeed ... and the ending pays off what has come before.

My main concern with the film was why, if they had all the resources and money to pay Michael, terrorise his family, cause people to be killed, and to watch his every move, why didn't they know who this Phrynn was, what they were carrying, and do their dirty work themselves?  It all seemed a little contrived to set all this up just, it seemed, to torment Michael.

However Neeson gives a powerful performance of a man on the brink, and the acting from all the supporting characters is great (including Shazad Latif who you might recognise as Clem Fandango from the series Toast).

Well worth 105 minutes of your time!

Review: Laurel & Chaplin: The Feud Stage Play

From the outset you know that this play, Laurel & Chaplin: The Feud, is going to be something slightly different. In London's West End, it's showing at the Cambridge Theatre, but only on Monday nights ... the rest of the week the theatre is home to the stage production of Matilda ... and the theatre is done out with elements relating to that show: school desks, books on the walls and so on ...

But here, Jordan Conway, playing Chaplin, starts messing about in the seats before the show starts ... goofing with the people in the gallery ... before it all kicks into gear as the lights dim, and he introduces himself.

The play follows and documents the relationship between Charlie Chaplin, and Stan Laurel (Matt Knight) from when they first met in London (introduced to the stage by Chaplin's mother, a somewhat drink-addicted stage songbird) through to when Chaplin headed for Hollywood and beyond. The double act was indeed Chaplin and Laurel for a time as the two cavorted and performed and developed their schtick on stage: Chaplin 'the funny one' and Laurel 'the straight man' ... however nothing is that simple, and Laurel was the more talented of the two, and Chaplin developed a fear of being overshadowed, thus when Fred Karno (Richard Gauntlett) entices Chaplin to Hollywood, Laurel never hears from him again, and eventually teams up with Oliver Hardy to create the great comedy duo of early film.

The show is fast and furious, with some superb and occasionally jaw-dropping performances from the cast, who do all their own stunts and prat falls, and indeed magic and displays of dexterity ... it's simply amazing and very, very entertaining.

There's a sequence at the start of act two, where Chaplin puts together a silent movie, and three people from the audience are dragged up on stage to play the parts, as Chaplin explains what they have to do, and then they do it ... all with no words at all.  I have not laughed so hard for years!  There's so many small elements which make it funny, and seeing non-actors going through the paces was superb!

If you have any interest in the subject matter, it's a story of friendship, but also pathos and sadness as Chaplin abandons his friend. But it's also a rollicking great stage experience ... fun and hilarious ... and of course, highly recommended.

A footnote: we saw the show on the opening night, and also present was Jon Conway, father to star Jordan, who produced, co-wrote (with Jordan) and co-directed, and also the other co-director, Michael Barrymore - yes, the TV personality and comedian - who gave a very humbling short speech at the conclusion. This show brings together all the delights of old-style music hall, with the acts, the music and the sheer variety of talent on offer ... Superb!

Where: THE CAMBRIDGE THEATRE, LONDON

When: Monday evenings (to 28th August 2023)

How to get tickets: https://jonconwayproductions.com/laurel-chaplin-the-feud/

From 30 August - 2 September 2023 there are also four shows at the Blackpool Winter Gardens, also bookable at the above link

Review: Renfield (2023)

We had a sense ... a feeling that we were going to enjoy Renfield.  Nothing you could put your finger on ... but we love vampire films, and we also love a good Nick Cage film ... and also with Nicholas Hoult in the cast (who was amazing in both Warm Bodies and The Menu) it looked a good bet.

We were not disappointed.

Within three minutes of the film starting, as they are recreating scenes from the original Universal Dracula with Cage as Dracula and Hoult as Renfield, both doing startlingly good impressions of Bela Lugosi and Dwight Frye, we were beaming with joy!

From there we're straight into some fast and furious action as Dracula is cornered by vampire hunters and chased around a room, before he is captured in a circle and burned to a crisp ... just superb ... and the film has barely started.

In Renfield, the plot is broadly following the title character (Hoult) as he serves his master, Dracula (Cage). The difference is that eating bugs bestows Renfield with some of his master's power, so he becomes super strong, and can jump and leap around supernaturally ... Dracula's blood also heals him, so the various injuries he sustains from fighting down the bad guys in the drugs cartel are dealt with too ... So there's a bad guy with a cocaine smuggling ring, and Dracula and Renfield fall foul of them ... and we follow the threads to a crime boss (Shohreh Aghdashloo) who wants Dracula to help get rid of a rival gang ... There's also a policewoman (Awkwafina) who gets involved, and the whole thing rattles along at a good pace!

We loved the film!  The character of Dracula is superbly performed by Cage, the make-up and effects are brilliant, and Cage brings a lot of interest and pathos to the character, which is cast as a classic narcissist gaslighter, who dumps on poor Renfield at every turn, making him feel that everything is his fault. It's a great reading of the characters, and the script by Ryan Ridley does a good job of bringing it all to life.

Hoult, as expected, plays the downtrodden Renfield very well, and when he joins a kind of AA group for co-dependent abusive relationships, the smiles keep coming!  

I've seen people hating the film, turning it off and so on ... but for my money, if you like vampire films, and appreciate the broad and rich history of them, then you should love this one!  It's a romp, yes, and it doesn't take itself too seriously ... just serious enough for it to entertain without becoming a farce.

I'd give it probably eight or nine out of ten!!

Review: The Lunchbox (2013)

Wait a moment ... why is David J Howe of this parish, reviewing a film which seems to have nothing to do with his usual fare of zombies, horrors, vampires, ghosts or Doctor Who ... or TV SciFi/Horror?

The answer is simple ... like some of the other non-genre films that I adore (say hello The Holiday and Airplane! - and of course The Stranger in Our Bed :)) it's a brilliant film, and very underrated and overlooked ... so I thought I'd try and share some love and get people seeking it out.

Released in 2013, and written and directed by Ritesh Batra, The Lunchbox contains a simple idea. In Mumbai, when the menfolk (and I assume womenfolk too) have all gone off to work in the city, their partners prepare their lunches at home. From what we see, these are usually some curries, vegetables, some chapati and so on. Similar lunches can also be ordered from companies who provide the service. Once they have been prepared, the lunchboxes are packed and then collected by a small army of people called dabbawalla ... these folk cycle and collect the boxes, then consolidate them all to go into crates on the trains, to be taken into the city, and then, using some arcane system of knowledge, get distributed to the offices and onto the desks of the workers, so they have a hot, freshly prepared dinner at lunchtime.

It's a superb idea, and the film does well in showing the process at work ... in a crowded Mumbai, people everywhere, somehow these boxes reach their intended recipients ... well ... all except one.

The film is about two people: at home is Ila (Nimrat Kaur) who dutifully prepares lunch for her absent husband. She is aided by her unseen Auntie (Bharati Achrekar) and the two have a great banter as Ila prepares the food ... getting advice and help from her upstairs friend. The prepared lunchbox however doesn't get delivered to Ila's husband, instead it arrives with grumpy and about to retire Saajan (Irrfan Khan), who is surprised to receive such delicious food. The next day, realising the mistake, Ila pops a note in with the food, apologising. Saajan replies ... and so it begins.

The two begin a relationship of sorts through these notes and the food that Ila makes ... and it's beautiful. Ila is sad and lonely, and Saajan is a widower ... so the two share their stories and their lives and slowly it changes them ...

I love the film. It was recommended to me by a friend at work, and I managed to find a copy ... It manages to pull at all the right strings in presenting a very human story through the most unlikely of circumstances ... Ila's 'Auntie' is a brilliant creation. Never seen, but always there with advice and help and consolation. The scenes of Mumbai are brilliantly shot, and the offices and the people are as real a depiction of the culture and the people as I have ever seen.

The film is in Hindi, but has subtitles in English, but with such a good film this doesn't matter as the performances and the story pull you through.  I'm not going to reveal how it ends or the twists it takes as it's worth seeking it out yourself!

If you like a good romantic film, and don't mind subtitles, then please check it out! There are DVD copies on the big A if you look ... and it's available on Prime if you want to stream it.

But don't take my word for it ... according to the Wiki, the film won the 'Critics Week Viewers Choice Award' also known as the 'Grand Rail d'Or'. It was a box-office success and received unanimous critical acclaim. The Lunchbox was also nominated for 'Best Film Not in the English Language' at the 2015 British Academy Film Awards.

Review: Black Mirror Season 6

Thank goodness for Black Mirror. Just when you thought there might be nothing left to watch on Netflix, along come some more episodes of the best science fiction/drama/horror/fantasy series going!

Season five was some four years ago, so writer and creator Charlie Brooker has a lot of material to play with, and the opening episode is in many ways a typical Black Mirror scenario, concerned with technology, it's rapid rise, and where this might all eventually lead. It's one of the big strengths of the series that a simple 'what if' can launch you into some full blown horror scenario which still seems completely believable.

In 'Joan is Awful' we follow the character of Joan (Annie Murphy) who, with her distinctive white streaks in her hair is head of something or other at a large tech company. She has a bad day: she has to sack a colleague, sings in the car going to work, drops a cigarette on said colleague as they leave the building ... just a general, normal bad day ...

But when she gets home, she discovers that the streaming company Streamberry (a direct swipe of Netflix, even down to the onscreen visuals and sounds) has a new series on called Joan is Awful, and this follows the life of a lady called Joan, played by Salma Hyack, who looks exactly like Joan, and whose day unfolds in exactly the same way ... even down to secret text from an ex-boyfriend ...

As a result her current boyfriend (or husband, it's not important) walks out on her, she loses her job, and her life becomes more and more a living hell ... and of course the TV show matches this all beat for beat.

It transpires that, when Joan signed up for Streamberry, she ticked the box that said she had read and accepted the terms and conditions, and as a result, Streamberry was allowed to stalk her and to use her life as the basis for a TV show!  Shades here of the South Park episode 'Human CentiPad' where one of the children, Kyle, is stalked by Apple as a result of not reading the Terms and Conditions when agreeing to download the latest iTunes update, and as a result he has actually agreed to be part of a horrendous medical experiment!

Anyway, Joan takes her complaints to Streamberry, but meets a frosty reception as this is all part of their global plans. Salma Hyack is also displeased as they are using her likeness via an AI to make the episodes - and she has no say and gets no fees ... so she and Joan join forces to try and take Streamberry down!

The episode is a brilliant reflection on modern life where we're expected to read many-page terms and conditions online in order to access services, and in reality have little idea as to what we are signing up to. Plus the ruthlessness and cold-heartedness of Streamberry is notable, moreso as Netflix are airing the series, and this seems to not reflect well on them at all ... I guess someone there has a sense of irony or humour after all. I do wish they would agree to pay the writers fairly though :(

The second episode is called 'Loch Henry' and is a complete change of mood and style. Here we're with a young couple Davis (Samuel Blenkin) and Pia (Myha'la Herrold) who arrive at Davis' family home by the Loch, looking to make a documentary about a couple who went missing there years ago. There's various likely suspects, and we soon realise that this time we're in murder-mystery territory as the culprits are revealed ...

I don't want to say too much here as the pleasure in this episode is watching it unravel before you, and realising who and how the murders happened. It's a sad tale, and the ending isn't all happy ...

'Beyond the Sea' is a strange title for a character piece about two astronauts, Cliff Stanfield (Aaron Paul) and David Ross (Josh Hartnett) on a six year deep space mission.

What puzzled me a little about this episode was the time it was set in - apparently 1969 on Earth, but we're in some sort of alternate universe as the two astronauts are in a space station-like craft, and take it in turns to 'connect' their minds with a robotic body back on Earth, who looks and acts just like them, and which, when their mind is in it, carries on their life as though they had never left.

The robotic 'self' seems to be made from some quasi-organic material and 'bleeds' a silver liquid when cut. So when the men visit their wives and family, they can interact and carry on as normal.

This is, until a crazed Manson-like gang infiltrate David's home and viciously kill his family in front of him, objecting to his 'non-human' form.

David slips into depression, as he is now unable to take the breaks he would have done from the tedium of the space craft. But then Cliff has an idea, why doesn't David take Cliff's robot body for some periods ... to give him relief and to try and keep him sane.  Thus David does this, and meets Cliff's wife Lana (Kate Mara) and son. David can paint, which Cliff cannot, and so David persuades him to allow him to continue to visit in order to complete a painting of the house ...

As this is a Black Mirror episode, perhaps you shouldn't expect happy endings, and here where the story goes and how it ends is maybe the darkest the series has delved so far. Ostensibly a science fiction episode, it's actually a very dark treatise on loneliness, death, and the human condition ...

'Mazey Day' follows the life of a papparazo photographer, Bo (Zazie Beetz), who picks up a lead on a celebrity Mazey Day (Clara Rugaard) who has not been seen for two weeks after she left a film set. Bo has been recently disenfranchised by her chosen career when one of her 'subjects' commits suicide ... But the Mazey Day pictures are worth a lot of money, and so she sets out to try and find her, tracing her to a rehabilitation centre.  She and some fellow 'togs' break in, and find that she seems to be being held captive there ... but why?

As always, I'm not going to give the game away, but this is a great horror-based episode, with a neat twist that we certainly didn't see coming ... It's television firing on all cylinders, and giving us science fiction, horror, thriller, drama and everything in between ...

Finally in Season 6 comes 'Demon79', and Brooker's penchant for humour comes right to the fore (the episode is co-written with Bisha K Ali). Nida (Anjana Vasan) is a mild manner worker selling shoes in a department store, and she experiences imagined flashes of extreme violence against some who cross her. She is forced to eat her lunch in the basement, because others have complained of the smell of her spicy food, and one day she finds a talisman, cuts her finger, and accidentally summons a demon Gaap (Paapa Essiedu). Initially appearing as a very horrific vision, the demon realises that if he is going to get anywhere, he needs to look acceptable so pulls an image from her mind as to who to look like. And he chooses Bobby from the band Boney M in the video for their single 'Rasputin'!  Thus he tells Nida that she needs to kill three people in three days or the world will end ... but what will mild-mannered Nida do?  Surely there's some out there who deserve to die!

Thus the stage is set for a very entertaining episode, levened with humour and great characters, and with all the little touches that make Black Mirror so great. I loved Nida watching Sapphire and Steel one evening ... and the use of Bobby off the Boney M video is inspired.

I have loved this season of Black Mirror which again proves that it's one of the best shows on streaming. Every episode presents something new and different and we veer from science fiction to horror to comedy to thriller to drama and back again, and often all of them all at once.  It's inspired and accomplished writing, supported by great performances and direction.  A note too for the design, which manages to make the settings look like the years they're supposed to be - 1979 here in 'Demon79'.

Do yourself a favour and dive in. If you're not keen on a certain episode (we found the very first one in season 1 - about the politician and the pig - to be not to our taste) then go to another as there are sure to be some things here which will inspire and move you.  For me, the best episode remains 'San Junipero', a superior treatise on love and death ... but others may love other episodes.

Review: Run Sweetheart Run (2020)

We found this thriller on Prime, and decided to give it a go ... and were very pleasantly surprised.  It's an effective 'chase' thriller wherein Cherie (Ella Balinska), a young mother, agrees to go on a date with a client of the law firm she works for ... as she is preparing though, her period starts, and she is out of tampons, so has to extemporise.

Initially, this focus on her period and the blood seemed out of place and, well, icky ... but it actually has a lot to do with the action that follows. The man Cherie meets is Ethan (Pilou Asbæk), and while he seems kind and nice and fun to be with, he's actually something of an unpredictable maniac who dogs hate ... Cherie runs from him, not realise that he's actually some sort of supernatural demon who has scented her blood and so can find her wherever she goes.

Thus she runs ... and the film occasionally puts up a large red RUN on the screen each time she needs to get out of there ... shades of the Werewolf Break in The Beast Must Die!  But each time, Ethan turns up to slaughter whoever might be with or helping Cherie!  It's a great action concept and the film handles it really well. You never quite know when he might appear or who might get killed ...

Eventually she finds some help, but I'm not going to go there as it's worth enjoying the film for yourself.

The blood and gore is well done, and the sense of threat and terror is ratcheted up as the film progresses. Cherie is a good heroine, strong and capable, but she finds herself being tried by the supernaturally strong and unkillable Ethan. At times he reminded me of 'the Shape' in John Carpenter's Halloween and subsequent films ... a strong, mostly silent, stalker who is out to get you!

Run Sweetheart Run was directed by Shana Feste from a screenplay by Feste, Keith Josef Adkins and Kellee Terrell, and is another great slice of horror from Blumhouse Studios, who seem to be cornering the market these days in great horror thrillers.  Well worth checking out.

 

 

Review: Freaky (2020)

Freaky, is, probably because filmmakers have no imagination, a riff on the Freaky Friday film - ie it's a bodyswap.  But this is a little more imaginative in that here, the teenaged victim swaps with the serial killer!

It all kicks off in a very familiar style, no real surprise as it's a Blumhouse film, and they tend to know their horror. So there's a killer, the Butcher, who targets teens at a prom, who comes back every so often to kill again ... and we're stalking a girl, killing her boyfriend ... it even has the Halloween style masked killer who cocks his head to the side to inspect a kill ...

But then we leap forward, and it's the turn of another group of teens to try and escape the killings ... but the killer uses an ancient sacrificial blade called la Dola and this causes his victim, Millie (Kathryn Newton) to swap with the Butcher (Vince Vaughn) ... The bulk of the film then follows 'Millie' as the Butcher reinvents her as a hot chick, out to find kids to kill, and 'The Butcher' as Millie tries to come to terms with what has happened and to recruit her friends to help her stop the killings!

There are some neat gore effects, but nothing too nasty or dwelt upon which I appreciated ... however the murder methods are quite nasty - cut in half on a wood saw, a meat hook in the eye ... The performances too are excellent, with kudos especially to Newton and Vaughn who seem to be having a great time, and who manage to make the volte face idea work.

The love of horror continues into the character names. Millie's boyfriend is called Booker Strode (no doubt after Laurie Strode from Halloween), and Millie's second name is Kessler (taken from David in An American Werewolf in London?). The film was inspired by the writer, Michael Kennedy, seeing Happy Death Day and liking the mix of slasher film with Groundhog Day (and that film and it's sequel are Highly recommended!). Thus Freaky is directed by the same man: Christopher Landon.

Well worth 90 minutes of your time, if you like horror with an 80s vibe but which manages to do something new and interesting, then this should be right up your street.

Review: Bloodshot (2020)

This Vin Diesel film is new on Prime and new to me ... it's a science fiction tale, but starts as though it's a straight thriller.

Diesel plays a soldier, Ray Garrison, out in combat, and he ends up kidnapped by the bad guy, who then kills his wife in order to try and make him talk ... but Diesel knows nothing so gets shot in the head for his trouble ...

But then, we discover that Diesel's body has been taken for scientific research and he's been given a hefty dose of nanobots which have repaired his body, and which make him superstrong and almost unstoppable ...

So what does he do? He heads off to find the guy who killed his wife to extract his revenge ...

To say more would be to spoil the film and to give away some of the twists ... needless to say it's not straighforward! It is, however, a hugely enjoyable action thriller of the type that Diesel does really well ... if you remember him in the excellent Pitch Black and XXX then this is more of the same!

The film also stars Talulah Riley as his wife Gina, and Eiza González as KT. The main protagonist is Guy Pierce as Dr Emil Harting, but there are strong performances from Sam Heughan and Lamorne Morris as well.

A very enjoyable evening's entertainment!  Recommended!

Review: New DOCTOR WHO books Christmas 2022: A Short History of Everyone; The Official 60th Anniversary Annual 2023; Origin Stories

It's been a little time since I've had a chance to chat about some new Doctor Who titles, so it's been a pleasure to look at these three titles, all of which appeared recently ...

First up is Doctor Who: A Short History of Everyone. This is actually material compiled from three earlier titles published by Penguin: How To Be A Timelord; The Companion's Companion and A History Of Humankind; but the material has been reworked with additional illustration and 'jottings' to bring it up to date and relevant for the 13th Doctor.

It's a strange book really: it's aimed at the younger market, so the layout is all handwritten text with notes scribbled in the margins, faux post-it-notes scattered about ... as though the Doctor has compiled all this information together in one place, complete with photos and drawings and sketches and so on, and it's just been printed! There's sections 'written' by Ace, and Grace Holloway and UNIT and Susan and so on ... All as though the Doctor has kept a scrapbook of everything as they wander through their adventures. And it's all very 'talking down', with quips and jokes and all aimed at ... maybe a 6 year old?

But there is a fondness about it ... it's busy and interesting to look at, quite diverting ... it's just all so young-aimed. I suppose in a way the show with the 13th Doctor was aimed far younger than the 12th or previous Doctors. The storytelling onscreen was simpler and the moral dilemmas more straightforward and in-your-face, so possibly this is where they were trying to pitch this book ...

As an introduction to Doctor Who for a young fan, it's pretty good, though lacking much in the way of meat. It is excellently designed and structured though, and the authors (Craig Donaghy and Justin Richards) have done a great job in trying to cover as many bases as they can. As always with these books, there's a focus on 'modern Who' ie post 2005, but there's a fair amount of Classic Who represented too with information on past Doctors and companions, as well as a handful of monsters who have not (so far) reappeared in the new series: Haemovores, Sil, Krynoid, Axons, Jagaroth and so on.

All in all, a nice little book which should be diverting for any young fan!

Next up is Doctor Who: The Official 60th Anniversary Annual 2023. Over the years the Doctor Who Annual has undergone various transformations. From being predominantly fiction-based for most of the Classic Series, to now being a photo/latest series-based book in line with the majority of Doctor Who publishing in the 2000s.

For the 60th Anniversary volume, writer and designer Paul Lang has pulled together as much as the 62 pages allow ... And again this is all written for younger readers ... using slang and trying to be flippant and funny all the time. Some of it works, but there's a part of me that really hankers for the adult-written but accessible factual texts of the past ... I guess the Annual is not the place to be looking for that!

There a history of the Doctor here, Daleks, Companions, Weapons ... that some items are missing is covered in that the 13th Doctor had her memory wiped ... so this is only the stuff she can remember ... it's fiction posing as fact posing as fiction ... very Meta!

We have Sontarans, Sea Devils, Swarm and Azure ... Karvanista ... foes of the Flux ... some puzzles and quizzes, a drawing challenge ... There's even a short story here by Jasbinder Bilan - 'Clara Oswald and the Enchanted Forest' (which is actually from the book Origin Stories! Nice piece of PR there!)

The Annual has always been traditionally the Christmas stocking present for kids, and this volume continues the tradition. Like the Short History, it's busy and there's a lot crammed in ... plenty to read and look at on Christmas Day and Boxing Day, some activities to do, a story to read ...  

As a celebration of 60 years, Annual-style, it's good, and Lang covers all the main bases. It's also gone up in price by £1 - the first price rise since 2009 - 13 years! Which is not bad going.

Finally for this selection, Doctor Who: Origin Stories. This is a collection of ten short stories (and an Epilogue) featuring the lives of some of the Doctor's companions before they met the Doctor ... Two of them have been written by the actresses who played the companion: Sophie Aldred contributes an Ace story, and Katy Manning pens a Jo story. It's also good to see credit and acknowledgement being given to the creators and copyright owners of several of the characters and elements used within the stories.

The 'Ace' story, 'Chemistry', kicks things off, and it's a tale of Ace at school where she invents Nitro9 and blows up the Chemistry Lab ... but the Doctor is there too as a chemistry teacher who helps her ... and then the Head turns into a monster and the Doctor saves her ... 

It's nicely written, but I'm not a great fan of narratives where the Doctor inserts his/herself into the past lives of companions before they met him ... that would do all sorts of harm to the timestreams as well as screwing up in-show continuity (just look at Clara!)! Sadly this meant that several of the stories in this book were not for me.

'My Daddy Fights Monsters' by Dave Rudden is a tale of young Kate Lethbridge-Stewart and an encounter with an alien 'Assessor' observing the Earth and trying to find more out about the Doctor ... At least the Doctor isn't in this one ... it's OK ... a little simple ... but something that could conceivably have happened in Kate's past.

The next story 'The Myriapod Mutiny' is by Emma Norry and features Yas and Ryan, again at school and again facing some alien incursion ... and the Doctor makes an appearance too ... but it's OK as their memories are wiped at the end ...

Then there's a Davros story by Temi Oh, a Sarah Jane Smith tale from Mark Griffiths in which she meets the fourth Doctor but then forgets all about it at the end, a second tale from Dave Rudden has Vastra telling a story of her early life to Jenny, Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé writes about Martha Jones who meets the Doctor and then forgets all about it, Nikita Gill's story features Amy Pond and Rory, Jasbinder Bilan tackles Clara (who again meets the Doctor and then forgets all about it), and finally Katy Manning spins a tale of Jo Jones (nee Grant). This is more of a memoir - various little excerpts from her life - and she meets a time traveller ... but it's Iris Wildthyme from Paul Magrs' books and audios rather than the Doctor ... and then finally the Epilogue where we get another story from Dave Rudden which features the Master/Missy.

Overall this is an uneven and disappointing selection. Too many of the tales rely on a past, and then forgotten, meeting with the Doctor, and for many of these companion characters, part of the point of them appearing in the show was that their past lives were uneventful and lacking meaning: a meaning that travelling with the Doctor gave them. Maybe because it's aimed at the 5-10 year old reader this sort of repetition is okay ... the young fan just waiting and anticipating in each case for the Doctor to appear ... 

Conceptually a book focussing on stories of what happened to the companions before they met and travelled with the Doctor was perhaps always going to be a struggle ... either there is no story there, or they had already met (and forgotten) all manner of alien monsters and nasties, and of course the Doctor was there to put things right. It does have a beautifully composed cover though - sadly uncredited in the book.

Review: Doctor Who and the Daleks (2022)

Every so often a Doctor Who item comes along that when you first year about it, you scratch your head and wonder why ...  This was my reaction when I heard about this new edition of Doctor Who and an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks (as it was originally called) being released by BBC books. It's a large format hardback illustrated by Robert Hack, one of the artists whose work has been seen on trading cards and in the Doctor Who comics and graphic novels ... he's also a fine fellow in real life!

So I wondered how they could make this work ... what a strange choice of something to release ... a book that has been in print almost non-stop since it's first release in 1965 ...

And yesterday I got a review copy.

And wow!

Sometimes a book just gets everything right, and this is one of those times. The size is sort of mid-way between a large format A4 sort of size, and the smaller Royal size that some hardback fiction is released at. But the slightly squarer format really works.

Probably my only complaint is that title. They have called it Doctor Who and the Daleks ... I would have preferred the original and more nostalgic Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks ... but that's just being picky.

The book contains the text from the 2011 reissue of the novelisation by BBC Books in their 'Target' imprint ... but this time, for reasons best known to them, they omit to credit Justin Richards for the 'Changing Face' and 'About the Authors' texts, and Steve Tribe for the 'Between the Lines' section. There's also nothing about Robert in the book itself (he does get a mention on the back cover flap though). It would have been nice to have seen an afterword piece from him on his work, the unused cover ideas and so on ... Neil Gaiman does get a credit for his superb and nostalgic introduction though ... which sets the scene nicely for the story to follow.

The real beauty of the book kicks in on the first page, as we are treated to the first of the many illustrations of a car on a foggy Barnes Common being driven by Ian Chesterton. This reminds us that this is David Whitaker's superb novelisation, which differs in some respects from the televised story ... like Neil, I have memories of the Barnes Common opening, the car accident, and the strange man with the everlasting matches ... and it's all here ...

Robert's illustrations take you into the story and present scenes as we move through ... it's all here ... mutations in the swamps ... Dalek mutants ... Thals being exterminated ... Ian climbing inside the Dalek casing ... and, finally, the incredible glass Dalek itself!  All rendered in gorgeous illustration which leap off the page.

If this was an experiment, then it really worked well! The book is beautiful to look at, and the story is one of the very best from the Doctor Who Novelisation range.

At £30 the book is not cheap, but I'm assuming that you can probably find it for less if you search - at the time of writing Amazon have it for £19.99 which is pretty good!

As a gift to give to a new fan of the show, it's pretty perfect ... and for us old nostalgists, it brings back lots of smashing memories ...

Top marks to BBC Books for this one ... and maybe we'll see more stories adapted into this format in the future!

Doctor Who and the Daleks is published in hardback by BBC Books (an imprint of Ebury Publishing). 3 November 2022, £30.00

Review: Hellraiser (2022)

CAUTION: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!

I'm a massive fan of Clive Barker and his work ... from the moment those first Books of Blood were published I was hooked on his imagery and sheer imaginative skill in spinning tales.

One of his first novellas was called 'The Hellbound Heart', and Clive adapted it himself into the screenplay for his debut directorial feature, a little horror film called Hellraiser way back in 1987 ... and the rest is history.

That original story laid the background and the groundwork for the Hellraiser mythos. That there were mysterious puzzle boxes scattered over the Earth, which could be obtained for a price ... Those who sought them were looking for the ultimate pleasure, the borderline between pleasure and pain, and the boxes promised this. However in truth, the boxes summoned demons from Hell, travellers in the paths of ecstasy and torment called Cenobites, who had used and scarified their own bodies in pursuit of the ultimate in sensation. They were masochists and sadists who offered the ultimate in pleasure, but at a cost. And opening the box summoned them ... and they would then take their victim with them when they returned.

The story followed Kirsty, who discovered that her stepfather Frank had been taken by the Cenobites, but that he was now trying to return to the world using her stepmother Julia to procure victims and blood to feed his revival. Frank will let nothing stop him, even taking his own brother's skin as part of his attempt to outwit the Cenobites.

In the story, it is really Frank and Julia who are the monsters, and yet it was the Cenobites, led by the regal priest, colloquially termed 'Pinhead' as his head was covered in pins, hammered into his skull in a geometric design, who grasped the imagination. A new cabal of original monsters, poised to take you to the edge of sensation, and then beyond into a hell of their own devising.

That original film is a masterpiece of imagery and horror. Nothing quite like it had been seen before, and it spawned two direct-ish sequels (Hellbound: Hellraiser II and Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth), and then a plethora of franchise spin-offs which steadily descended into the dreadful as the studio tried to make the ideas work for them. Sadly some of the scripts started life as non-Hellraiser projects and were then co-opted to try and make them work ... and it showed!

Now, in 2022, we have another Hellraiser ... and this is billed as just Hellraiser again, reportedly rebooting and restarting the franchise once more. Unfortunately, it doesn't really do that, and it's so distant from the plot of 'The Hellbound Heart' that it might as well have been assigned number 11 in the series!

The new production is very much a film of two halves. The first half feels like another of those random horrors where the Hellraiser mythos has been added to try and sell the script. A girl, Riley (Odessa A'zion), is a recovering addict (a trait which could have been used as part of the plot but isn't) living with her gay brother Matt (Brandon Flynn), his boyfriend Colin (Adam Faison) and a roommate Nora (Aoife Hinds). Riley and her boyfriend Trevor (Drew Starkey) randomly break into a storage warehouse and find a puzzle box. Riley opens the box which makes a blade emerge, but she manages not to get cut by it. This summons the Cenobites who want her to choose another as a sacrifice ... Matt ends up being cut by the blade and is taken to Hell.

Riley and Trevor track down the warehouse to a man named Roland Voight (Goran Višnjić), who we saw in a prologue sacrificing another innocent kid to the Cenobites. They head to his abandoned house which has been set up with protective gratings in a very 'puzzle box' like configuration (though this idea seems to be abandoned/forgotten and they act just like normal protective gratings).

Riley finds Voight's notebooks and finds out the history behind the box and the Cenobites ... noting that victims need to be pricked by the blades for them to be taken!

This sets everything up for the endgame where the humans take refuge in the house while the Cenobites attack from outside ... and this second half of the film feels much more like a Hellraiser film ...

I don't want to give too much away, as there are some lovely visuals in the film. There are new Cenobites to 'enjoy' too, which continue the idea that these people have done these things to themselves in order to feel pain/pleasure ... however there is a rather nasty undercurrent of torture porn where the kids are taken and basically tortured by the Cenobites, and they never asked or wanted this to happen at all - they didn't even open the box! ... it's somewhat at odds with the themes of the original novella and film.

The Priest (Jamie Clayton), better known as 'Pinhead', here has been reimagined as female, but with a deep voice which gives for an interesting impact, and the character works well - providing a still point in all the horror and torment for some discussion of what motivates the creatures to do what they do ...

What is sadly lost for the most part is that people seek out the boxes for that ultimate pleasure. Who can forget the scene in the original Hellraiser where Frank in Larry's skin is literally pulled apart by chains ... and before which he licks his lips in pleasure and utters the classic line 'Jesus wept!' at the sheer overload of pleasure in what is happening to him.

In this new film, the Frank/Larry role is taken by Voight, who has a Cenobotic torture instrument attached to him which plays with his nerves, taking him to the brink of pleasure/pain every few minutes. He is after the ultimate experience, and indeed by the end of the film, he has achieved his desire.

So this new Hellraiser is an uneasy mix of unrelated teen stuff, mixed with a pot pourrie of ideas harvested from the first and second Hellraiser films. It misses out on the main theme of pleasure/pain in favour of making the Cenobites more generic monsters who will chase you and kill you (or in the case of the Chatterer, gnaw you to death!) which is a great shame and somewhat cheapens their initial concept and origin.

There's a really nice central idea with the puzzle box where it takes a variety of configurations and each means something different ... this could have been the central core of the film, perhaps where Riley has to outwit a different Cenobite each time, each geared towards providing a specifically 'Hell' themed interpretation of what the pleasure/pain/sensation divide was. It's a shame that the idea of the house also being a box was not developed, but then the house does seem a little like that in 13 Ghosts as it is ... so perhaps it was for the best.

Overall I felt that this was something of a missed opportunity. Pinhead arrives far too late on the scene, but the new look and styling works. The other Cenobites (Jason Liles as the Chatterer - aside from 'Pinhead' the only returning creature from the original films, Yinka Olorunnife as the Weeper, Zachary Hing as the Asphyx, Selina Lo as the Gasp, and Vukasin Jovanovic as the Masque) are interesting, though in some cases it's hard to see quite what has been 'done' to them which somewhat reduces their impact. They have names in the credits but there's little in the film to understand which is which and why they are called that. I loved the 'room re-configuration' effects which were very well done as the portal to hell opens to allow the Cenobites ingress. When the back of a moving van undergoes the same process, this was exactly the sort of imaginative reworking which was needed.

The new film reuses some of Christopher Young's melodies and scores for the first two films. A strange choice I felt, but it works even if it highlights how great Young's work was compared with the new compositions for this film.

Ultimately it's the lack of an actual plot which holds this new version back. There's a lot of stuff happens, and it's overcomplex, but there seems little narratively to hold it all together. The idea that the box needs to take the blood of the next 'victim', willing or not, and whether human or not, is a new one, and the film should have made more of the rich mythos that it was mining rather than trying to insert new themes into the mix.

Not bad as a horror film, but disappointing as a Hellraiser reboot.

HELLRAISER 2022 IS AVAILABLE TO WATCH IN THE USA ON HULU.

Review: More Doctor Who Targets to Tickle Your Fancy

Ask any Doctor Who fan about the Target Books and you will most probably receive an outpouring of love and appreciation for a long-running range which has kept the Doctor's adventures in print form since 1973!

And they're still coming! BBC Studios through the Ebury imprint, recently released four more paperbacks under the Target banner ... all novelising recent or older adventures of the Doctor.

First up, there's two titles credited to David Fisher, who died in 2018. These are actually taken from audio versions of the stories that he penned in 2011 and 2012. The original Target novelisations were by Terrance Dicks, who adapted Fisher's scripts, and so these are Fisher's own take on the adventures he wrote. They have apparently been slightly tweaked for the printed format, but present two adventures for the fourth Doctor, as played by Tom Baker.

'The Androids of Tara' is a double-trouble romp, loosely based on The Prisoner of Zenda, where the Doctor and Romana arrive on the planet Tara looking for a segment of the Key to Time, and get themselves involved in robot shenanigans as Romana is the spitting image of the planet's Princess Strella.

'The Stones of Blood' is a somewhat different kettle of fish, where, looking for another segment of the Key, the time-travelling twosome become embroiled first in an adventure on Earth where blood-drinking rocks turn out to be accomplices of an alien criminal who is posing as a mythical being ... and then to a spacecraft trapped in hyperspace whereon two justice machines, the Megara, are pondering on where their prisoner has gone, and decide to put the Doctor on trial for releasing her!

They're both great romps with lots of surprises in store ... 

Moving slightly more up to date, and James Moran contributes a novelisation of his scripts for 'The Fires of Pompeii' in which the tenth Doctor (David Tennant) and companion Donna Noble, head back to Italy on the day that Vesuvius is due to erupt, and discover alien beings hiding in the hot underground tunnels, and a sect of apparently psychic seers who have unexplained powers.

Finally, Rona Munro, the only author to have straddled both classic and new Doctor Who brings us a novelisation of her twelfth Doctor (Peter Capaldi) story 'The Eaters of Light'. This sees the Doctor, Bill and Nardole travel back to second century Scotland to encounter a lost legion of Roman soldiers, and an alien creature from another dimension ...

I suppose if the books have a theme at all, it's one of visiting the past ... but as with all the Doctor Who novelisations, these are great fun, and especially with the latter two, where the actual televised adventures were only around 45 minutes long, they slightly expand on the material and provide more background to the characters.

Audio readings of the four adventures are also available, with Clare Corbett reading 'The Fires of Pompeii' and Rebecca Benson (who played Kar in the televised story) reading 'The Eaters of Light'. Also, ebook versions of all four titles are available.

The Stranger in Our Bed - Available in the UK!

My amazing wife's debut thriller is finally available to watch in the UK from today (Sept 5th) ...

Prepare for Britain’s answer to 'Gone Girl'. Feeling trapped in her controlling marriage to wealthy husband Tom (Ben Lloyd-Hughes, 'Industry', 'Sanditon'), Charlotte Carlisle (Emily Berrington, 'Humans') begins an affair with another man, who one day mysteriously disappears without a trace. Behind her husband’s back, she secretly begins an investigation into the disappearance, teaming up with her lover’s sister Becki (Terri Dwyer, 'Hollyoaks') to uncover the truth behind what happened. It quickly becomes clear that nothing is at it seems, and after becoming witnesses to a murder, the two become entangled in a dark and twisted game of cat-and-mouse. With her life on the line, Charlotte must uncover what’s really going on – before it’s too late.

Also starring Andi Osho ('Shazam!', 'Good Omens S2', 'The Sandman'), Bart Edwards ('The Witcher'), Joseph Marcell ('Fresh Prince of Bel Air', 'Doctor Who') and Nina Wadia ('Bend It Like Beckham', 'The Sandman').

Directed by Giles Alderson ('Knights of Camelot', 'World of Darkness') and produced by Terri Dwyer for Buffalo Dragon, based on the best-selling book by Samantha Lee Howe.

The film is available on all digital platforms (including: Sky, iTunes, Amazon, Google, Xbox, Virgin Media, Rakuten) ... There's a lot of them about, so here links to a few of them ... but it might also be available elsewhere. We don't think it's legitimately available for free anywhere ...

Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Our-Bed.../dp/B0B8PX6L93

Sky Store: https://www.skystore.com/.../8798580c-a2ce-400b-b3ae...

Rakuten TV: https://rakuten.tv/uk/movies/the-stranger-in-our-bed?utm_source=rakutenuk&utm_medium=rakuten_uk_landing&utm_campaign=rtv_promo_page&q=Stranger%20in%20our%20bed

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNg3ztQh9Hc

There is no UK DVD/BluRay physical release at this time, but there is a USA DVD (which is USA Region 1 - so normal UK players can't play it) available here: https://www.amazon.com/Stranger-Our-Bed.../dp/B09WJCZZMB

And the brilliant soundtrack by Ian Arber is also available for download here: UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/music/player/albums/B0BCXDVKZN

The original novel is available from HarperCollins One More Chapter (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stranger-Our-Bed.../dp/0008374589)

If you watch the film and enjoy it, then PLEASE consider leaving a rating or a review on IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13661368/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

But please don't leave a 10* review no matter how much you loved it as these appear to generally be seen as a red flag and are not taken seriously