Fright Night

I loved the original Fright Night when I saw it back in the 80s - especially the guy full of meal worms, or grubs, or whatever it was. Well here's the trailer for the 2011 version staring (among others) our very own David Tennant!

Peter Vincent David Tennant style

Cowboys & Aliens

James Bond and Harrison Ford go toe-to-toe with ET. I, for one, cannot wait...

Solomon Kane

Looks like my kind of film.



Another film I've seen recently is Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. I actually got to go to a preview screening and was going to post a review here. Life and work got in the way but suffice to say, Chris Columbus (who directed the first Harry Potter film) was keen not to simply make a Greek Gods version of Harry Potter apparently. Well he failed. Percy Jackson should really be called Harry Potter and the Lightning Thief. And don't get me started on Camp Half-Blood...

Alice in Wonderland - booking now!

It's only a matter of a couple of weeks now until Tim Burton's take on Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland hits cinemas nationwide. And you can book your seat at the BFI IMAX cinema here.

Howl of the Werewolf - the movie!

So, I've just been to see Howl of the Werewolf... sorry, The Wolfman... and a very fine film it was too. 142 minutes of gruesome skin-changing fun - exactly what you want from a movie released in time for Valentine's weekend.

The Wolfman is old school horror, a classic jump out of skin shocker, enhanced by modern special effects although, pleasingly, prosthetics and make-up are just as important as the CGI elements in the film. Anthony Hopkins sleep walks through his part, but Bernicio Del Toro is perfectly cast as the eponymous monster of the title. Emily Blunt does what she has to (which isn't very much) but Hugo Weaving, as disgraced Ripper-hunter Inspector Aberline, is great fun to watch - especially in the scene in the village tavern.


The setting is late 19th century (1891 to be precise) and everything is suitably grim, rundown, gloomy, smoky and gothic. There are creepy mansions, foggy London streets, rugged moorland studded with standing stones and brooding skies. Danny Elfman's score evokes the music of Bram Stoker's Dracula and Sleepy Hollow. There are plenty of OTT bloody deaths to get your teeth into, and Joe Johnston (the director) doesn't waste any time in getting the blood pumping with a drama attack on a gypsy camp and doesn't linger on the weeks between full moons either. Oh, and parts of it were filmed at Castle Combe in Wiltshire and others at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire.


Half way through The Wolfman briefly turns into An American Werewolf in Victorian London, and there's even a nod to the Piccadilly Circus scene from John Landau's classic, but it's an exciting sequence with a hilarious lead-in set within Lambeth Asylum.


But when you consider the subject matter of the film and the plot (particularly in the last reel) I couldn't help feeling that I was watching Howl of the Werewolf committed to celluloid - which was kinda cool, in it's own way. (Oh, and talking of Howl of the Werewolf I am reliably informed that it will be re-released later in the year as one the new format Fighting Fantasy books, which'll be cool too.)



So, to sum up, if you're into werewolves, Bernicio Del Toro or things that go bump in the night generally, then The Wolfman is for yoooooouuuu!

The SFX Weekender

So, I drove down to Camber Sands yesterday for the second half of the SFX Weekender (I mean why else would you go to Camber Sands?) and had a great time.

I hooked up with David Moore and Jonathan Oliver of Abaddon/Solaris Books and signed some stock, as well as giving away some Pax Britannia badges, and was interviewed for a forthcoming podcast. I met ace Slaine artist and Preacher cover artist Glenn Fabry (who happens to think he's quite good). I was welcomed by Darth Vader and his Stormtroopers and ran into these interesting-looking fellows...


I listened to China Mieville talk about writing for the YA market (or not as the case may be), I listened to Jon Oliver read from his first novel The Call of Kerberos, I watched the fantastic Moon (starring the even more fantastic Sam Rockwell), I listened to a Q&A session with Toby Whithouse, creator of Being Human, having just watched a sneak preview of tonight's episode, and listened to a panel discuss the various merits, or otherwise, of tie-in and spin-off fiction (or tie-off, as one of the panellists called it).

Tom Baker regaling the crowds

Jon Oliver - lord of all he surveys

Glenn Fabry talks comic special effects budgets

Al Ewing - fellow Abaddon author

The 2000AD stand - Clint Langley and Leigh Gallagher draw for your entertainment

To conclude, here's a list of ten things that I now know as a result of the SFX Weekender that I didn't know 48 hours ago:

1) You can buy a bespoke Dalek for £3,000 but it'll take at least 10 weeks to make.
2) Glenn Fabry's thinking of becoming a teacher.
3) The novelisation of Snakes on a Plane was Black Flame's best-selling title.
4) Tom Baker gets chatted up in Waitrose by ladies of a certain age (that means they're in their 70s, I think).
5) Ianto Jones actor Gareth David-Lloyd was unaware of the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's version of Torchwood, which they call Torchwool.
6) Cosplay is really just what my 3 year-old calls dressing up (but done by adults).
7) Gareth David-Lloyd would like to play Lion-O in a live-action version of Thundercats.
8) He-Man is camp.
9) Leigh Gallagher can't draw as quickly as Clint Langley.
10) This Christmas will see the release of the first Pax Britannia Ulysses Quicksilver omnibus.

The Iron Man Cometh

Spider-Man 4 is no more

All I can say is b*****!

You can read more about this story here.

Lost In Translation

If you've not seen these freaky film posters from around the world (but mainly Eastern Europe) for well-known movies, you're in for a treat. But be warned, some of them are not for the faint-hearted...

The Wolfman

How good does this look?

Okay, so it looks like an American Werewolf in Victorian London, but that sounds like a great combination as far as I'm concerned.


And look out for some more Victorian-inspired Werewolf action in the forthcoming Pax Britannia: Blood Royal from Abaddon Books.

The Restless Dead

Fans of zombie movies everywhere, boy have you got a treat coming! Out imminently in the country is Dead Snow, featuring brilliant one liners and frozen zombie Nazis, and come October there's Zombieland (which was the name I had for a personal project which I might have to re-think now).

How cool do these two movies look? (Be warned, the following feature presentations are not for children, or the squeamish!)

New Who Movie

Pretty much as soon as New Who became a Saturday success story there have been rumours of another big screen outing for everyone's favourite Time Lord. (The previous two outings were both in the mid 1960s and starred Peter Cushing alongside the Daleks.)

But now the Beeb has given official word that they are actively developing a script for a DW movie. To find out more, click here.

Saturday Morning Watchmen

Today, Watchmen the movie is released right across the country. But have you seen this Saturday morning kids TV version before?



(Kudos to David Bishop for this one.)

Behind the Scenes: Howl of the Werewolf - The Glass Knight

One of the 'creatures' you can fall foul of during the course of Howl of the Werewolf is the Glass Knight. Animated by evil magic, the image of a warrior from a stained glass window comes to life and battles you, attempting to chop you into little pieces with its razor-sharp glass sword.

The idea of the Glass Knight was one that I had been hoping to use in a gamebook for quite some time, but I cannot claim that it was an original one. The encounter was wholly inspired by a memorable scene from the 1985 cinematic feature Young Sherlock Holmes.

During the course of the movie, an old priest is hit by a poisoned dart shot from a blowpipe. As a result, hallucinates that he is being menaced by a stained glass knight. Considering the film was made over 20 years ago, the effects are, on the whole, excellent, especially the creation of the knight which took Industrial, Light and Magic artists four months to create. It was brought to life through computer animation, helped along by John Lasseter of a little known company, at the time, called Pixar.

If you've not seen the film before, it's worth tracking down for a look. It's better than you might have been led to believe. And if you have seen the film, you'll know that already, in which case, perhaps it's time you revisited that particular moment of escapism from your childhood.

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Well, soon we'll all be able to. The trailer for the Watchmen movie is now available for viewing through Empire online. Need I say more?

Personally, I'm looking forward to the inevitable(?) Lego merchandise. ;-)

Here you can see the god-like Dr Manhattan doing his thing.

Behind the Scenes: Howl of the Werewolf - The Abbey of the Black Monks

WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! WARNING! SPOILERS AHEAD! GOT THAT?

If you are yet to read Howl of the Werewolf (or yet to complete it) you might not want to read this post just yet. I'm not going to give anything major away, just a few small surprises.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Wandering through the wild land of Lupravia, the hero of Howl of the Werewolf comes upon the Abbey of the Black Monks, high up in the craggy uplands to the east of the country. They may choose to stay there for the night, simply seeking shelter or possibly hoping to find a cure for the curse that is afflicting them. However, if they do they soon discover the terrible truth about the Black Monks themselves.

The Black Monks have been corrupted by their even more grossly corrupted Abbot and are now half-human, half-insect monstrosities, intent on devouring our hero. There are things that resemble bipedal cockroaches, preying mantises and all manner of nasties lurking in the dungeons beneath the Abbey.

The inspirations behind the Abbey and its mutated brethren are pretty obvious, when you think about it. Apart from tying into the whole idea of various individuals having been corrupted and changed in different ways in the past, the mutation of the monks drew on such sources as films The Fly and Mimic.

The Abbey itself was based on the Italian monastery that forms the backdrop to the medieval murder mystery that is The Name of the Rose, with its hidden labyrinthine passageways. It is interesting to note that the exterior of the monastery seen in the film was constructed on a hilltop outside Rome, and was the biggest exterior set built in Europe since Cleopatra, whilst the interiors were shot at Eberbach Abbey in Germany.

This was one of those sections of the book that grew in the telling and, in part, forced the finished adventure to 515 paragraphs rather than the standard 400. By having the hero able to properly explore the dungeons the Abbey became more than just another passing encounter. In fact I had to cut some scenes from this part of the book because otherwise it was just going to be too long. So, it was farewell to the inquisitor's torture chamber, the branding iron-wielding poltergeist and the interrogation by the ghost of the vengeful inquisitor himself.

I really enjoyed writing this part of the book, which was also inspired by an entirely different idea I had for another gamebook long ago, and yet which might have pushed the boundaries of what is acceptable for a children's book.

Now that reminds me of another story, but that will have to wait until another post.