Cultivate a thick skin Politics is ubiquitous, and what seems personal to us may be political to other people. It’s almost impossible to write fiction without it embodying your own outlook on life: and when we use fiction to make political points — to advocate for some aspect of our outlook — it’s bound to
Interviews
To celebrate the upcoming home release of Darren Aronofsky’s mother!, we spoke to the director himself about the film’s beginnings and beyond. SciFiNow: How did mother! come about? Darren Aronofsky: Well there’s, there’s a lot of ideas at the beginning of this project that started it all. I’ve always been jealous of songwriters who in
In a month packed with films featuring massive spectacle and enormous budgets, you should treat yourself to something a little different, something that’s going to get under your skin. The Unseen, written and directed by Gary Sinyor, is a British chiller about a grieving couple (played by Jasmine Hyde and Richard Flood) who are struggling
After concluding his barnstorming Age Of Darkness trilogy, author Stephen Aryan is back with Mageborn, the first in a new epic fantasy saga set in the same world that also serves as an excellent jumping on point for newcomers. We talked to Aryan about his new saga, the response to the Age Of Darkness books, his
Few filmmakers have been as consistently fascinating and yet hard to define as Michael Almereyda. He’s dabbled in horror with the David Lynch-produced vampire movie Nadja and baffling Irish mummy film The Eternal, he’s updated Shakespeare with Ethan Hawke in Hamlet and Cymbeline and he’s brought the strangeness of real-life figures like Stanley Milgram to
Norwegian director Joachim Trier veers away from his dramatic arthouse roots with a supernatural horror about a young woman struggling with her repressed sexuality. His complex character work seen in his previous films such as Oslo, August 31st and Louder Than Bombs is still apparent and so too is the great care he takes in
If you’re a genre fan, you’re going to recognise Ruth Bradley. Over the last few years she’s delivered superb performances in some of our favourite SF TV series and movies, starring as mysterious synth Karen in Channel 4’s brilliant Humans, woman out of time Emily Merchant in Primeval, and straight-laced Garda turned boozed-up alien-battler Lisa Nolan in cult favourite Grabbers (she
Jeff Goldblum talks Thor: Ragnarok and is predictably charming in our latest video interview
By Poppy-Jay Palmer 27-10-17 531
To celebrate the release of Thor: Ragnarok, which is in cinemas now, we had a chat with Jeff Goldblum (the Grandmaster) and, obviously, he was as charming as ever. Watch the full interview
What makes an iconic horror villain? It’s not just about having a killer costume, or a distinctive murder weapon. To create a seriously scary, enduring baddie, you need a motive, a personality – and an actor who’s willing to fully inhabit that character, even if it means going to some dark places. Saw’s Jigsaw definitely
It turns out Hollywood very nearly missed out on Guillermo del Toro. The Mexican director was so burnt on Mimic that he nearly gave up on Hollywood for ever – and a certain controversial movie mogul was to blame. “My first American experience was almost my last experience because it was with the Weinsteins at
In honour of Patty Jenkins’ summer blockbuster Wonder Woman coming out on DVD, Blu-ray and digital download this week, we had a chat with actor Lucy Davis, the woman behind everyone’s favourite 1940s secretary Etta Candy, about the character, the sequel and what Wonder Woman means to her… SciFiNow: How did you end up getting involved with
Director Mike Flanagan and producer Trevor Macy have worked together on several projects in the past – including Oculus, Hush, Before I Wake, and Ouija: Origin Of Evil – but Gerald’s Game might be their most ambitious and challenging yet. It’s an adaptation of a Stephen King novel, in which a woman fights for survival
Antagonist-turned-general pest Troy Otto has come along way since 3.01, after almost having his eye scooped out with a spoon… With Fear The Walking Dead Season 3B on the horizon, we spoke to Troy actor Daniel Sharman about his character’s journey and where the show is heading next. SciFiNow: Troy was pretty all over the place emotionally
Back in January of this year, director Liam Garvo and the Dresden Pictures team crowdfunded a proof-of-concept short for an ambitious dystopian sci-fi called Biopunk, starring Game Of Thrones‘ Hodor himself: Kristian Nairn. That campaign was successful and now the short is available online, and it’s looking excellent. In fact, just check it out: BIOPUNK from Dresden Pictures
Ren Warom’s SF debut no Escapology was one of the most gripping and inventive cyberpunk novels in recent memory. The world she created, with Slip Haunt Shock Pao being forced into a deadly and potentially catastrophic heist and coming up against mob bosses, assassins and insane AIs, was both grounded and blisteringly creative, showing a
You can’t keep a Universal monster down. Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, The Wolf Man, The Invisible Man, The Creature From The Black Lagoon…all these iconic creations are being exhumed for a new generation, so it seems rather fitting that this new shared universe begins with our action-man hero raiding an ancient tomb: it all starts with
While the idea of uncovering the Mummy in modern day seems like an easy enough leap (misbehaving soldiers looking to make a buck on the black market fit into any era), a film like Universal’s The Mummy needs to make damn sure that it’s got a great monster if it’s going to convince. Luckily for director Alex
From the time of Wonder Woman’s creation, she has always been treated as a sort of women’s alternative by the people whose jobs it is to make money from her worldwide brand. In corporate terms, she’s a female hero for female consumers. But that’s never really been the case for fans. Just because you’d be
Bags of Holding…in SPAAACE! When I first realized I had to deal with starship layouts in the hexarchate, I had two choices. I could either sit down (probably with my long-suffering husband) and make a loving diagram of a ship and its layout, and refer to it assiduously every time I had someone go from
I grew up reading The Bobbsey Twins, Tom Swift Jr, Nancy Drew, and The Hardy Boys. These mysteries were packaged by the Stratemeyer Syndicate and specifically targeted kids. Like many of my contemporaries, I liked reading these books because they were about kids like me solving fantastic mysteries. I fell in love with the characters,
Alien: Covenant is playing now in UK cinemas but when we talk to Ridley Scott about the latest chapter in the franchise he created, the film is about a month away from release. Segments have played at various conventions and festivals, the promotional machine had really ramped up, and he catches himself about to drop a
Alien: Covenant arrives in UK cinemas today, with Ridley Scott’s Prometheus follow-up promising to bring the terror back to the Alien franchise. It follows the crew of the Covenant, a colony ship searching for humanity’s new home which takes a chance on a seemingly perfect planet and pays a terrible price… While the crew is led
In The Belko Experiment, Tony Goldwyn plays Barry Norris, the man in charge of the Bogota office of the Belko corporation. His day gets a lot more complicated than he expected when the building is suddenly sealed and a voice comes over the intercom demanding that the men and women trapped inside start killing each