Host – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

2020 was not a great year for cinema. A lot of films scheduled to come out were delayed; some were released onto new platforms such as streaming services to avoid cinema releases, and others were put on hold altogether, as a deadly pandemic swept its way across the globe. So to not only create a film in that year, but to incorporate the restrictions and safety precautions into the actual story and make it a part of the narrative is not just bold, but pretty smart too.

New horror film Host follows a group of friends who are currently living in lock-down during the pandemic, and decide to not let that get in the way of their plans to do things together. Instead of doing something stupid and dangerous like getting together in person they use Zoom to hang out, and to take part in a seance.

The woman who leads the seance, Seylan (Seylan Baxter) informs them that she’s never tried this over the internet before, but she gives it a go. Unfortunately, when she drops out of the call for a while due to technical difficulties things begin to go wrong, and it soon becomes apparent that by messing around and mocking the spirits something has come across from the other side, something that seems to want to punish the people on the call. Thus begins a series of events where these people are stalked in their homes by an otherworldly presence.

The premise of this film initially made me think of other movies that have used connecting up via the internet, things like Unfriended, however unlike those films this one makes a whole lot more sense, due in large part to the reason that it’s happening online. In other films there’s a suspension of disbelief as to why people don’t just simply run away when scary things start happening, and why they stay on Zoom, but here there’s a really good reason for it. There’s nowhere for them to go. You can’t just run out of your house and go to a public venue, or run to a friend when it’s not safe to leave your home.

The film also uses the notion of something haunting them to much better effect than some other ‘techy’ horror films, and there are some very subtle moments of tension and creepiness as you begin to notice that things aren’t right, before the film ramps things up and goes into full on horror mode. One of the best things about this, however, is that the people in the film react really well to what’s going on, due in large part to the fact that sections of the script were held back from them in order for pre-recorded things to happen to elicit real fright from them. Not only is this very evil of the director, but it makes for some moments where the characters react in some very realistic ways!

Perhaps the biggest thing the movie has going for it though is its length. Instead of pushing things to a full 90 minutes and trying to pad the story the film is less than an hour long, and uses its time really well. It gives time to characters, so that you can get to know them before things start to go wrong, and can care for them, and has some slower moments to allow tension to build, but it still goes really quickly. There are other horror films that take place in real time, but often these feel badly paced, or have unnecessary things thrown in to make the film longer. Host simply turns up, tells the story it wants to tell, and goes. It doesn’t hang around running up the clock so that it can hit a certain run time, and it makes it all the better because of that.

The Blu-ray comes packed with a host of special features that add extra life to the home release, including some fun and informative commentaries from both the director and producer, as well as one from the film’s cast, as well as a number of behind the scenes interviews and Q&As that go into the making of the movie. There are also a couple of short films, and some prank videos included for anyone who wants even more content from Rob Savage, all of which are really good too.

Host is an entertaining and punchy horror film, one that uses the limitations of both the time it was filmed in and the format it chose to tell its story, delivering a really well made film that doesn’t take up a whole load of time.

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Pulse (1988) – Blu-ray Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

In a world where we’re so used to technology, where it’s so much a part of our everyday lives that we probably don’t even think about it too much, we don’t stop to consider that there was a time where having a microwave in the home might be a cause for worry, or where a VHS player was a strange box with unknowable workings. Yet this is the world in which Pulse lives, one where technology was new, and in some ways scary. 

The film follows David (Joey Lawrence), a kid who’s moved to California to spend some time with his father and his new girlfriend. He’s leaving behind his mother and his quiet rural life in exchange for the big city, a place where there are bars on the windows and the neighbour kids are just kind of mean. Shortly before he arrives the neighbourhood is rocked by a strange event when one of the neighbours smashed up the inside of his house, before being killed by a live electrical cable.

However, David soon comes to believe that there is something inside the man’s home, something that lives inside the electrical systems and moves from appliance to appliance, something that wants to kill David and his family. Now he has to try and get people to believe the unbelievable, and try to survive in a world where every piece of technology around him could be trying to take his life.

There’s not much explanation for what’s really going on in Pulse, the identity of this mysterious force is never really explained, and the only real origin that gets suggested is towards the start of the film when a strange bolt of electricity lands, but even then this doesn’t really clear much up. Is this some kind of alien entity? An escaped experiment? A ghost that lives in the wires? We don’t know, and it seems like writer/director Paul Golding doesn’t care to know either.

The reasons behind what we’re watching don’t matter though; this isn’t a story about a creature or entity terrorising this family, it’s more a story about how a family copes when under a strange threat. We get to see how all three members of this family learn about this thing, and how it affects them. David believes it straight away, and is the voice crying out to be listened to, Ellen (Roxanne Hart) is in denial at first but once she believes it is the one who’s most afraid and quickly finds herself at the end of her rope, and there’s Bill (Cliff De Young) who denies it right until the end, until the point where he’s presented with irrefutable proof and has to believe. The film spends its focus with these three, and takes an interest in the slow torment of the family and watches how they react.

It surprised me how much the film was about the family and their emotional breakdown. I was expecting a film that would be focusing on the ‘evils of technology’, like similar films from the time where technology causes havoc, yet it never seemed to be taking the stance that technology is bad. It never felt preachy or trying to push a message, and I could see the story working in a very similar way if the terrorising presence was using some other means to harm the family.

Despite being interesting, the film never wowed me, mainly due to the fact that nothing much really happened. There’s a death at the very start of the film, and no one else dies after this. The possibility of these elaborate deathtraps, similar to Final Destination, never really came to be, and the moments where the house turned on the family were pretty lacklustre until the big finale. There’s very little sense of tension, and the film didn’t really build on suspense. By the time stuff starts to happen at the end of the film it comes more as a relief because you’ve been sitting waiting for more than an hour.

The disc is fairly light on content too, with a trailer and video essay to watch through, as well as an audio commentary from author and film historian Amanda Reyes. The commentary is pretty interesting, and offers some good insight into the film, not just from a production point of view, but one that comes with a lot of historical context too.

Pulse has gained a cult following over the years, and if you’re a fan of the movie this new release will be really up your alley. If you’re coming to this having never seen it before, you might not be completely entertained by this slow, and strange horror story.

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Bernice Takes A Plunge by Ann Harth - Blog Tour

 

'Bernice Peppercorn’s imagination fills her mind and her notebooks with adventure and intrigue. She sees crimes where there are none and races to the local police station daily to fulfil her civic duty. When a real robbery is committed in town, Bernice dives into detective mode and stumbles across vital clues that could help find the thieves. No one believes her except Ike, a one-legged fisherman who lives down at the wharf.'

There's a level of fun to children's books that just seems to be missing from adult books, a sense of whimsy where even the most mundane thing is exciting or amusing that goes away as the target audience gets older. This is one of the things that's just so refreshing and enjoyable about Bernice Takes A Plunge, the silliness, the earnestness, and sheer joy that permeates almost every page.

The story follows the adventures of Bernice Peppercorn, a girl who's obsessed with mysteries. She wants to write mystery stories, having been inspired by the local celebrity Crystal Bell, who stars in a number of blockbuster mystery adventure films. She uses her everyday life to inspire her stories, coming up with ideas for adventures by the things she sees, unfortunately, her desire to find an interesting story can sometimes get her in a bit of trouble.

Bernice is known to the local police, not for being a trouble maker though, but for the exact opposite, for thinking everything she sees is part of a bigger mystery, and that there's always a crime afoot. We see this first hand a couple of times when she thinks that someone is trying to detonate a car bomb when she sees a young man with a remote control in the car park (he's just playing with a remote control car), and when she gets the police to investigate when a local woman goes missing and her house is a mess (she was just in the garden at the time). Bernice's heart is always in the right place, but she doesn't always seem to slow down and think before jumping in to save the day.

Fortunately for her, a real crime does happen when Crystal Bell's mansion is broken into and her jewellery is stolen. Now Bernice has a real crime to investigate, something that she knows isn't just her imagination. But who could possibly be behind the crime? Her first suspect, the strange new fisherman Ike who has just recently moved to town.

One of the things that I love about Bernice is that she's a little all over the place. Her mission is to try and find these stolen objects and solve the mystery, but boy does she get distracted a lot. Even when she's investigating her suspect Ike she goes a little off track. She sees he's got a wooden leg, and starts wondering what it would be like to walk around on it, so ends up strapping her leg up behind her and sticking a plunger on her knee so that she can walk around on a peg leg. This isn't the only time that something like this happens either, and it quickly becomes clear that Bernice is always getting distracted, forgetting things, and making silly mistakes.

I don't know if it was written this way purposely or not, and I'd love to ask Ann Harth about this, but the way Bernice acts reminds me a lot of ADHD. The way she has hyper fixations on certain things, yet can't seem to keep her focus on stuff, failing to read instructions fully because she just wants to get things done, losing stuff because she can't remember where she put it; it all reminds me of ADHD. In a lot of ways she's very similar to my wife, who has it, and I loved seeing a neurodivergent lead character, especially in a kid's book.

Like I said, I don't know if she was intentionally written this way, but even if she wasn't I'd like to think that people with ADHD, both adult and kids, would be able to read this book and see a bit of themselves reflected in Bernice. Everyone should get the chance to feel represented in media, and to have a lead with these kind of traits, who isn't treated as different and is able to solve the mystery and save the day is definitely a great thing.

Bernice is a really engaging and fun lead character, one that I enjoyed spending some time with. I loved her sense of wonder at things, of her desire to ask questions and to try new experiences. She seemed to have a lust for life and an energy that a lot of leads don't have, and it was enjoyable reading a character who's just having fun. I hope that this won't be the last we see of Bernice, and that we can get to see her tackle some more mysteries in the future.

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Daughters of Night by Laura Shepherd-Robinson - Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'London, 1782. Desperate for her politician husband to return home from France, Caroline 'Caro' Corsham is already in a state of anxiety when she finds a well-dressed woman mortally wounded in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens. The Bow Street constables are swift to act, until they discover that the deceased woman was a highly-paid prostitute, at which point they cease to care entirely. But Caro has motives of her own for wanting to see justice done, and so sets out to solve the crime herself. Enlisting the help of thieftaker, Peregrine Child, their inquiry delves into the hidden corners of Georgian society, a world of artifice, deception and secret lives.

'But with many gentlemen refusing to speak about their dealings with the dead woman, and Caro's own reputation under threat, finding the killer will be harder, and more treacherous than she can know...'

Daughters of Night is the latest historical murder mystery novel from Laura Shepherd-Robinson, and is a loose sequel to her first book, Blood and Sugar.

Set in London in 1782, the story follows Caroline (Caro) Corsham, the wife of the lead character in the previous book, who is given centre stage here. With her husband Henry away on important business Caroline finds herself in a web of danger when she discovers a woman dying in the bowers of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens.    

Caroline is there to comfort the woman in her dying moment, as she bleeds to death from several wounds, and hears her last words – ‘he knows’. Caroline believes the woman to be a wealthy Italian countess she had met a few times years before, but when it is revealed to her that she was actually a sex worker named Lucy Loveless, and that because of who she is no investigation will be made, Caroline sets out to find the killer herself.

She employs the help of a thief-taker called Peregrine Child, who her husband spoke highly of. Together, the two of them begin investigating Lucy’s murder, an investigation that will lead them to the brothels of London, a secret society, a master artist, and a conspiracy that could topple the entire country. With Caroline facing threats on all sides, and discovering that her recent affair has led to her becoming pregnant, she has to decide how far she wants to take this investigation, even if it means that she could lose everything.

I’ve read a few historical mystery books in my time, but this is one of the few that I’ve read that takes place within Georgian London, an era that seems to get overlooked. Despite being unfamiliar with this era beyond a basic knowledge of the style of dress and the gin craze, I never felt like I was lacking in information, as Laura Shepherd-Robinson manages to evoke such a clear sense of this world. She builds the atmosphere perfectly, providing enough information without overwhelming that you feel like you have a strong picture of what this old version of London looks like, as well as the people who inhabit it.

That being said, the people are where the book really excels, and Shepherd-Robinson manages to create a wonderfully varied, and expansive cast of characters. Whether it’s people we spend a lot of time with like Caro and Child, those we begin to suspect of the murder, or people we see only the once over the course of the investigation, these people feel very real and well crafted. It would be easy to make caricatures of some of these people, they’re from a very different time to ours, with very different societal norms, and it would be easy to paint all the sex workers as the same, or as one dimensional; instead, they get personalities, motivations, and dynamics that vary. They get treated like real people who you can empathise with and whose motivations you understand. Considering some writers fail to see any kind of sex workers as real people the fact that the author breathes so much life and personality into so many here, and ones from hundreds of years ago, is a truly pleasant surprise.

We also get some good insight into the inner workings of ‘higher’ society of the era too, and get to see that despite some people being assumed to be ‘betters’ simply because they have wealth and a title they can be worse than those who have nothing. The book plays with expectations on class and station in ways that I wasn’t expecting. Even those who aren’t connected to the crimes who hold high positions are shown to be flawed, greedy, and ruthless, whilst those who have to live in squalor, who are looked down on by ‘good’ society have compassion and caring, and choose to do the right thing. Much like with the portrayal of the sex workers, it would have been easy to fall into easy stereotypes here, yet the author instead chooses to paint a much more balanced and truthful depiction of society.

The central mystery is what really sells the book though, and it has some wonderful twists and turns to it. There was more than once that I thought I’d come across the right answer, or had figured out an important part of the mystery, only to find out that I was wrong. Even right until the end when I thought everything had been revealed Shepherd-Robinson managed to throw some final revelations and unexpected moments in that I never felt like I could let my guard down. It tested my deductive powers in a lot of fun ways, and that’s something not every mystery novel can say with confidence.

Whether you’re a fan of historical mystery or not, and whether you’ve much experience in this setting, Daughters of Night is a book that will hook you quickly, take you on a journey with unexpected twists and turns, and provide you with a compelling group of characters. An absolutely wonderful experience to read.

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The Swimmers by Marian Womack - Book Review

Originally published on Set The Tape 

'After the ravages of global warming, this is place of deep jungles, strange animals, and new taxonomies. Social inequality has ravaged society, now divided into surface dwellers and people who live in the Upper Settlement, a ring perched at the edge of the planet's atmosphere. Within the surface dwellers, further divisions occur: the techies are old families, connected to the engineer tradition, builders of the Barrier, a huge wall that keeps the plastic-polluted Ocean away. They possess a much higher status than the beanies, their servants.

'The novel opens after the Delivery Act has decreed all surface humans are 'equal'. Narrated by Pearl, a young techie with a thread of shuvani blood, she navigates the complex social hierarchies and monstrous, ever-changing landscape. But a radical attack close to home forces her to question what she knew about herself and the world around her.'

The Swimmers is the latest novel from Marian Womack, and much like her previous book, The Golden Key, it has a strange, dreamlike quality that makes reading it a  unique experience.

The narrative follows Pearl, a young woman who’s grown up in a world of the far future, where the earth has been completely altered by climate change and out of control terra-forming, creating a place that’s almost unrecognisable for readers.

Following global warming the world has been transformed, covered in a vast, always changing jungle, filled with mutant animals. There are three groups of people surviving in this future: those who get to live high above the Earth in the huge ring that surrounds the planet; the Techies, old families who were once responsible for the construction and upkeep of the large barriers that keep out the deadly seas, but have to live on the surface; and the Beanies, a recently freed group of people that were once slave and servants, working in the Techie homes and growing food in the jungles.

Pearl is a Techie, and has grown up in a remote estate in the jungles, but after her father leaves her life after apparently killing a child, Pearl’s childhood takes a turn she didn’t expect. Eventually her mother remarries, and the family get to move to one of the last towns left, where she begins to learn more about the world around her, and starts to uncover some secrets about her family and their past.

I mentioned at the start that The Swimmers has something of a dream-like quality to it, and this is mainly due to the fact that the narrative is told from Pearl’s point of view, and that the book is written less like someone experiencing a series of events and recounting them to the reader, and more like someone looking back on their life. The narrative comes across more like a flow of consciousness than a more thought out telling of a story.

Pearl hasn’t rehearsed what she’s telling people, she isn’t writing it down in an easy to understand way, editing what’s there until it’s clear and easy to follow. Instead it will jump from point to point, with the time-frame of events moving around. She’ll start talking about one thing, but it seems to remind her of something else, so she switches her focus and talks about that for a bit, before going back to her original point. Because of this the book can at times feel pretty disjointed, and even hard to follow, however, it gets readers deeper into her mind than a normal first person perspective would normally manage.

The strangeness of the writing style, and of Pearl’s thoughts, are magnified in sections where another voice takes over, and we get parts written from another point of view. These segments feel more like a traditional first person perspective, and are closer to what most people would probably be used to experiencing. These segments help to give further context to Pearl’s story, showing events from different vantage points, and allowing deeper understanding of what’s going on, things that Pearl couldn’t possibly know. They also help to explain the conclusion of the book, something that if we were just following Pearl’s story alone would take a very sudden turn and conclude almost out of nowhere; yet together these two narrative types seem to work, and craft a mostly complete and satisfying narrative.

I say mostly, because there was so much about this world that I wanted to learn more about, yet readers were never really given that opportunity. Over the course of the book we learn a little about how the world ended up this way, but it feels like this was just the tip of the iceberg for the most part. We never really went deep into how things got to this point, who was responsible for the dramatic changes to the planet and its wildlife. We got tiny glimpses into the creatures that now inhabit the jungles and vast, plastic filled oceans, but only occasionally when an animal we’ve never seen or heard of before is mentioned in Pearl’s story. I really wanted Womack to go into this in more detail, to really show the weirdness and horror of this new Earth, yet it never happened.

I’d recommend The Swimmers to people who want to read a strange and multilayered story, one that will get you thinking and filling in the gaps, but if you’re not a fan of complex weaving narratives and opaque storytelling it might leave you wishing for something a little easier to digest.

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Power Rangers #4 - Comic Review

 

It takes a lot to make me feel sorry for Drakkon, a character that's been pretty irredeemable since he was first introduced several years ago, and has well and truly earned his place as a villain worthy of hating, but, there's something about this issue that makes me feel a little bit sorry for him.

The issue starts with the Omega Rangers and Drakkon arriving in the strange dreamworld like construct that Drakkon was imprisoned in at the end of 'Shattered Grid', a place that was supposed to allow him to live out the rest of his days in relative comfort and peace. Those who were able to read the FOC covers that showed the destruction of the Red Emissary will be a little familiar with this place, as they saw it then, when it had been Drakkon's prison for a while.

Now, however, the place is falling apart. Having been modelled on Angel Grove, it's now a ruin, with pieces of the reality broken away and floating in the sky above our heroes. It seems that in the destruction of the Emissary reality itself has begun to fall apart here. If that wasn't dangerous enough, those giant spirit animals left to protect the prison still remain, and are more than willing to fight the Omega Rangers for trespassing there.

This issue not only gives writer Ryan Parrott a great opportunity to show readers a little bit of what was going on inside Drakkon's head, with glimpses into the ideal world he wanted to create, but also allows artist Francesco Mortarino a chance to do some weird and wonderful things with the environment. Thanks to the way it's drawn, and the colours provided by Raul Angelo, the whole thing look suitably weird. It's not simply a ruined version of the Ranger's home town, but a place where the line between dream and reality is skewed, and the art really reflects this.

It also becomes apparent that despite being able to fill the world with fake versions of the people he knew, Drakkon was still very much alone here, and that this definitely had an effect on him. We see some of the things he came up with to provide a much needed sense of company and reality, and it's one of the least healthy coping mechanisms you could come up with. I'm sure there are some who will say that Drakkon got what he deserved at the end of 'Shattered Grid', perhaps even that he got of light, but it's clear that things definitely had an affect on his mental state, and have played a large part in the way he is now. It's not just the fear of the Empyreals that caused his mental health issues, but the place he was locked away in too.

We end the issue with the team collecting the pieces of the remains of the Red Emissary, and them learning that they could put those pieces back together to revive him; unfortunately, it seems like the Empyreal that killed him took one of those pieces with them. At least now the Rangers have a goal and something to go after. Though it does raise the question of whether they could go and gather the pieces of the Blue Emissary since Kiya killed him too.

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Quincredible Volume One: Quest To Be The Best by Rodney Barnes - Book Review

 

'Invulnerability is a pretty useless superpower if you’ve only got a one-hundred pound frame to back it up. That’s what Quinton West’s life became when he went from small guy who got beat up to small guy who can’t get hurt after the meteor shower dubbed “The Event” gifted him the power of invulnerability but no other powers to compliment it.

'But there’s more to Quin than meets the eye, and after some encouragement from his new mentor—a local New Orleans–based superhero named Glow—Quin realises that he can use his quirky hobby of creating Rube Goldberg devices to outsmart the opposition. But being a hero paints a target on your back, and Quin’s got to risk it all to join the ranks of the superheroes he looks up to. It’s a good thing he can take a punch.'

Quincredible is the first book that I've read in the Catalyst Prime comics universe, and was actually unaware that this was part of a larger world when I read the book, as such, I spent some parts of the book wondering who certain super heroes were, but it was still able to entertain me as a piece of fiction all on its own.

The book follows Quin, a young man living in New Orleans who received incredible powers when a meteor shower hit the already devastated city, granting some people superhuman abilities. Quin is struggling with his life, not sure what to do with the gifts he's been given to not be hurt by anything, not knowing if this means he's meant for bigger things or not, whilst also struggling as a member of the Black community in a city where the government left many of the most needy to survive on their own following a natural disaster.

This is one of the things that immediately jumped out at me about this book that sets it apart from a lot of other super hero books, especially books set in the Marvel or DC universes. This is a world where Hurricane Katrina still hit the city, where communities were devastated and left with little help from the government. It mirrors our world. There were no heroes swooping in to save the day, and minorities were left to pick up the pieces. It felt like it had more of an impact in ways regular super hero comics often fail to.

The book was also notable because of how diverse the cast was. I'm actually struggling to remember any main or important character that wasn't a person of colour; and all of the heroes were from minorities that are often overlooked in comics over white heroes. I'm sure that there will be some who will immediately accuse it of being 'woke' or 'too PC', but fuck that kind of view; in a world full of white heroes it's about time that more Black heroes are given the chance to take the lead and shine.

A lot of the book seems to centre on the struggle of the Black community in the US, and Quin and his family and friends have to worry more about the racism from police, social inequality, and a system designed to keep them down as they do powered villains suddenly turning up and destroying the city.

Whilst I did enjoy the book I feel like I definitely would have gotten more out of it if I'd read more from this universe and knew some of the already established heroes that appeared her, but that's not a criticism that I can really lay at the feet of the book. Instead, I'll say that this was an issue with how I read it, and I'm sure that if I went away and read the books that came before this I'd have enjoyed it more, and that's something that I'm actually going to try to do. I think once I read the books in order I'll get more from this. That being said, it was still an entertaining read, and acted as a good introduction to this new shared universe. It got me up to speed pretty quickly on how these heroes got their powers, and the general state of the universe and the way people feel about this new change in the world.

Quincredible might not be the best place to start reading the Catalyst Prime universe, but it still acts as a good jumping on point, one that introduces the world, the characters, and will leave you wanting to read more of both Quin himself, and the other books available.

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Future State: Catwoman #2 - Comic Review

 

Future State: Catwoman continues to be one of the best Gotham based books in the Future State event, and writer Ram V manages to forge a really engaging and compelling story in just two issues.

The final part of this story carries on where the first left off, with Selina and her resistance group attempting to save a group of children taken prisoner by he Magistrate, currently being transported via train. This meant that Selina had to spend the first issue getting on board the high speed train, and now has to find a way off with the kids she's there to help. However, things have been complicated by the level of resistance being put up by the Magistrate, and another prisoner on the train, Bruce Wayne.

The reveal at the end of the last issue, that Bruce was a prisoner on the train, was an exciting moment to end on, getting readers excited to find out what happened next. Would Selina get to see Bruce, would they get a moment together? Ram V teases this moment out for a while by putting some more obstacles in the way, such as having Selina and her ally, Onomatopeia, stuck inside one of the carriages after a long and pretty brutal fight.

Sadly, this reveals one of the downsides of the story only being two issues long, that we don't get enough of Selina doing cool things that tie into her skills as a thief. Yes, getting onto the train felt a lot like a heist, but once on board she mostly relies on brute strength to fight her way through those in her way. I'd have loved to have seen her having to get past things like laser trip wires, picking locks, or hacking her way through security systems. We do get a little of this when she uses the electronics in her suit to fry the electronic locks is pretty cool, and really shows her heroic side, I wanted more of this than the book was able to give. Thankfully, Ram V is going to be writing the Catwoman series after Future State, so hopefully we will get to see this stuff in the future.

Whilst there weren't many moments of Selina using her thief skills we get plenty of opportunities to see her in an action role, with some great action sequences thanks to the artwork of Otto Schmidt, who manages to make the fairly bare environment of the train interior look dynamic and engaging, filling the spaces with bold action that fills the frame.

The moment where Selina and Bruce get to see each other is definitely one of the best moments of the book, and lets readers see how their relationship has evolved in this new setting, and is probably one of the best Future State moments that involves Batman. It's a tender scene, and the parting lines that Bruce delivers sums up how well the characters work together, and why their relationship is a good thing.

Future State: Catwoman was a lot of fun, a book that managed to show the darker side of this future scenario, whilst also having a lot of fun and hope to it. Hopefully we will get more quality stories like this in the future when Ram V gets to spend longer with the character.

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Witherward by Hannah Mathewson - Book Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

'Welcome to the Witherward, and to a London that is not quite like our own. Here, it’s summertime in February, the Underground is a cavern of wonders and magic fills the streets. But this London is a city divided, split between six rival magical factions, each with their own extraordinary talents – and the alpha of the Changelings, Gedeon Ravenswood, has gone rogue, threatening the fragile accords that have held London together for decades.

'Ilsa is a shapeshifting Changeling who has spent the first 17 years of her life marooned in the wrong London, where real magic is reviled as the devil’s work. Abandoned at birth, she has scratched out a living first as a pickpocket and then as a stage magician’s assistant, dazzling audiences by secretly using her Changeling talents to perform impossible illusions. When she’s dragged through a portal into the Witherward, Ilsa finally feels like she belongs.

'But her new home is on the brink of civil war, and Ilsa is pulled into the fray. The only way to save London is to track down Gedeon, and he just so happens to be Ilsa’s long-lost brother, one of the last surviving members of the family who stranded her in the wrong world. Beset by enemies on all sides, surrounded by supposed Changeling allies wearing faces that may not be their own, Ilsa must use all the tricks up her sleeve simply to stay alive.'

Witherward follows Ilsa, a young woman with a tragic past who is working as a magician’s assistant in London. Her big secret? Ilsa can actually do real magic.

After growing up in an orphanage where she was treated as a monster, where her abilities to change her appearance and turn into animals had her labelled as a demon child, Ilsa escaped, growing up on the streets and picking pockets until she attracted the attention of a magician who recognised that she had real magical abilities. Now a young woman, she’s settled into a life working on the stage, hiding her true abilities, all whilst searching for others who are like her. However, when strange figures start stalking her she begins to suspect that there may be something else going on. 

When she and her friend are attacked, and her friend is killed, Ilsa is rescued by a mysterious man with powers of his own, who whisks her away to the Witherward, another version of London similar to her own, but where the city has been divided up by different magical factions, all of whom exist in tenuous peace. Here Ilsa learns that not only is she a Changeling, a person with shape-shifting abilities, but that she’s part of the most powerful Changeling family, one who is on the brink of war with the other factions. Thrown into a world she barely understands, Ilsa is forced to use every trick she’s learnt on the streets and on the stage just to stay alive

Whilst it follows some very familar paces from the Urban Fantasy genre – a young woman learning about a secret world of magic, finding out that she’s special in some way, and falling for a dark and brooding guy – Witherward does things very differently, and quickly stands out as special because of this. The first major departure is that instead of being a modern story it’s set during the Victorian era (though I’m not sure that’s the right word for the Witherward itself as there’s no indication they have a Queen Victoria). I’m a sucker for this time period, and any story that uses Victorian London as a big part of its setting is always going to win me over quickly, but Witherward did it so well, starting readers in a version of London that’s familiar, before moving in to somewhere new and fantastical.

Another great thing the book does is instead of revealing a secret world hidden away from regular people it just takes Ilsa and plants her in another version of London, a connected parallel world where there are some surface similarities, but so many things are altered. The first thing that we notice is that when it’s day in London it’s night in the Witherward, and that the seasons are flipped, with the cold London winter being left behind for the war summer of this other world. This immediately sets the two locations apart before we even learn any details, and puts Ilsa on the back-foot straight away, forcing a confident character into realising she’s not in a situation she ever faced before. It also makes it easier for things to be really, really different, and not having to juggle issues like staying hidden from ‘regular’ human beings. Instead the Witherward can be bold and in-your-face with the things that make it magical and wonderful.

Whilst the world of Witherward is an exciting new place, the characters that fill it make for an interesting bunch. The changeling faction are the people we spend the most time with, and the inner circle are a varied group to be sure. There’s Hester, Ilsa’s cousin who’s been running the faction but has since been seriously injured; Fyfe, the young inventor; Cassia, the young sorcerer; and Aelius, the crafty spymaster, to name just a few. Suddenly Ilsa finds herself in the middle of what could be considered a crime family, surrounded by these characters where she doesn’t know who to trust. You really feel for her as this fish-out-of-water character who’s been dropped into the middle of an impossible situation.

Despite this Ilsa proves to be an incredibly strong lead character, and is one of the more believable and likeable young women protagonists I’ve read. So often there are leads who have no experience but suddenly find they’re amazing fighters, or they’re shrinking violets who’re always needing others to save them. Ilsa is a young woman who’s always had to fight for herself, whose wits and skills have kept her alive, and who you truly believe is a strong and capable person, able to do what she does in this book. It’s a genuine joy to read a lead character who feels so real, so strong, and so well earned.

This marks the first book in a series, and sets up for an incredibly interesting and detailed world, one that readers have barely begun to discover even after spending 400 pages in it. Whatever happens next in this universe, whatever Hannah Mathewson chooses to do with these characters, it’s sure to be as imaginative and original as this book.

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Sator – Film Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

You can often tell when a film is more than just a job for someone. There can be a big difference between the output of creators who have just turned up to do a job and get paid, and those that are truly passionate about the project that they’re working on. Sator is very much one of those projects where it  feels as though it wasn’t just about making a movie, but where it meant something to the person behind it.

It’s not a hard stretch to say that Jordan Graham is the driving force behind Sator. He wrote the script based upon his family and their experiences, he shot it, directed it, produced it, composed the music, did the cinematography, and edited it. This is a film that not only wouldn’t exist without him, but wouldn’t be half as good if it wasn’t for the level of passion that kept him going through the seven years of post-production that went into its creation. Despite being an almost one-man production, bar the cast of course, it never feels this way, and is an incredibly beautiful and atmospheric work of art.   

The film follows Adam (Gabriel Nicholson), a man living alone in the forest with his dog as his only companion. We’re introduced to him as he goes about his day walking the woods, catching animals, and returning to his old cabin. If it weren’t for the few modern amenities he had it would be easy to see him as someone living as a trapper centuries in the past, and the film feels like a modern take on Robert Eggers’ The Witch thanks to its lingering shots, beautiful scenery, and slow build of tension and horror.

After a while we learn that Adam isn’t completely alone, and he has family living pretty close by. There’s his brother Pete (Michael Daniel), sister Evie (Rachel Johnson), and grandmother Noni (June Peterson). It soon becomes clear that Adam isn’t quite living alone in the woods out of choice, but has been sent away by family for their own safety. It seems like the family has been plagued by tragedy, and that this may be linked to the voices being heard by their ailing grandmother, voices that she says belong to a real entity called Sator who wants to help and guide her; voices that were heard by Adam’s mother before her death, and now by him.

It becomes clear that the cameras set up around Adam’s cabin aren’t for tracking game, and that he seems to be keeping a watch for something he believes is out in the woods. Something that seems to keep him in a state of fear. Over the course of the film we begin to see more of what Adam thinks is out there, and learn why he’s so terrified.

It’s been revealed in the Director’s Statement given out by Graham that the idea of Sator came from his own family’s experience, that members of his family experienced auditory hallucinations over the course of their lives, and that this inspired him to write this film. Not only that, but the role of Noni is actually played by Graham’s grandmother, June Peterson. The grainier, black and white parts of the film that look like home movie segments are actually that, and Graham filmed his grandmother talking about Sator and her experiences with this entity. Learning that this film stemmed from his own family experiences explains why this film seemed to matter so much to Graham, and why he spent years of his life making it.

Sator is a film that doesn’t have any jump scares, that doesn’t rely on gore or visual horror to frighten its audience. It’s a film that instead relies on the quiet moments to build tension. The cold loneliness of the location, and the encroaching darkness of the forest play as big a part in the scares of this film as any of the things that seem to be stalking Adam.

If you like a film that doesn’t feel the need to try to justify everything, that uses the unknown and the bizarre to frighten you, then Sator is a film that you definitely want to see. Even if you’re not quite sure that this is the kind of film you could enjoy I’d still encourage you to watch it, even if just to marvel at how amazing it looks and sounds, and see what one person can do with a project that means something to them.

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Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #1 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

For those not in the know The High Republic is a brand new chapter of the Star Wars franchise that began last month with the release of the novel Star Wars: Light of Jedi, and the Marvel comic Star Wars: The High Republic.

Set some two hundred years before the events of The Phantom Menace, this new series of novels, comics, and children’s books will be showing the Jedi when they were truly at the height of their power, long before the shadow of the Sith began to emerge and led to their downfall. It also shows the Republic in a new age of expansion, moving into remote and dangerous parts of the galaxy and coming into conflict with the vicious Nihil.

This is where we find ourselves with the first issue of Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures, written by Daniel Jose Older, with art from Harvey Tolibao, and Rebecca Nalty; thrust into this bold new era as a group of young Padawans have to respond to an emergency distress call from the planet Trymant.

Luckily, there are a couple of Jedi Masters there to help them out, including a face fans will be familiar with, Yoda. Having Yoda included in this story is a great move by the writing team, as it not only means that we get to experience a much younger version of the character than we’ve ever seen before, but there’s something that long time fans of the franchise will recognise there to help anchor them in this new setting.

Though Yoda is around he’s not the main focus of the book. Instead this is split between the Jedi Padawan Lula Talisola, who’s trying to become ‘the best Jedi ever’, and Zeen Mrala, an inhabitant of Trymant who’s strong with The Force, but has to hide her abilities due to the way her society views such a connection. These two leads prove to be a great contrast to each other, and the way the narrative shifts between the two of them really highlights this. Where Lula is striving to be the best Jedi she can she struggles with her confidence, whilst Zeen wants to keep her Force powers hidden, but when it comes time to use them does so with a strength of self you wouldn’t expect. This difference in the leads is even more apparent when they both come together, and seems to be setting up some potentially interesting dynamics if they will remain together as the series goes on.

This is the first comic book outing for writer Daniel Jose Older, who has previously written for the franchise with Star Wars: The Last Shot, a tie-in book to Solo: A Star Wars Story, but you’d not know that, as he seems to settle into this new setting and new format well, delivering an intriguing comic. One of the best parts about the way that Older has written it is that it’s very easy to understand and get into, no matter how much (if any) of The High Republic you’ve read before.

The art team also do a superb job, Tolibao’s art style uses a lot of line-work that adds a lot of texture and motion to the panes, which brings a lot of the action to life in ways that aren’t immediately apparent, but definitely adds to the fast pace of the story. It’s not just the line-work that excels, but the colours too thanks to Natly, who brings brings it all to life. Whether it’s the cold dark blues used in deep space, the vibrant greens on the planet, every environment feels different and unique, and I love the way that the pinks of Zeen’s face turn into beautiful purples along her head tentacles.

The High Republic has proven to be an excellent and exciting new time for Star Wars fans in its other forms, and Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures continues that trend, delivering an exciting and action packed first issue.

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Goosebumps: Secrets of the Swamp #5 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

Goosebumps: Secrets of the Swamp has been playing with expectations and horror tropes since the story began, having the hero be a disabled woman of colour, having the monster hunters be the bad guys, and having the werewolves be innocent victims in all of this. It’s taken everything you’ve expected this kind of horror story to do and has done the opposite. And the conclusion is no exception.

This issue picks up where the last one left off, with Blake coming face to face with Lilly in the forest once again, after Lilly appeared to leave Blake alone in the woods a few issues before. It’s nice that in the middle of everything that’s been going on, with all of the panic and running around with the werewolves trying to get away from Lilly’s family, we get this quiet moment for Blake to be able to confront her. It allows the writer to manage some last moments of character development in what would otherwise be a pretty fast paced issue, and allows Lilly to present her side of the argument to both Blake and the readers, allowing us to make our own decision as to whether the young woman has been doing the right thing or not.      

Outside of this confrontation we get some action that’s pretty similar to the previous issues, with Blake working with the ‘monsters’ to get away from the humans that are hunting them. As in previous issues this allows Blake to show off her skills and bravery, having completely transformed from the young woman who was running around the swamp scared just a few issues ago.

I’m honestly kind of sad to see the story end with this issue, especially given what happens in the final pages of the book. I know that the Goosebumps stories tend to be short, and that this particular comic has gone on for longer than some of the other entries in the franchise, but I still found myself wanting to spend more time with these characters by the time it had wrapped up. It’s very rare that Goosebumps get sequels, and I can only think of one or two off the top of my head, but if they ever want to return to this setting and these characters I’m going to be grabbing those issues straight away, as this has been one of the most fun experiences with the Goosebumps comics I’ve had.

Writer Marieke Nijkamp has managed to do a really good job of balancing action and character development over the course of this series, and does the good trick of setting things up to appear one way before pulling the rug out from beneath the reader and giving you something else. These subversions make the story feel fresh and new, and prevent it from just treading the same old ground.

The art team of Yasmin Florez Montanez and Rebecca Nalty also work really well together, and the book is one of the better looking entries in the Goosebumps series. Montanez manages to make all the characters look different and distinct, and the werewolves stand out as particularly good, especially mid transformation; and Nalty uses an excellent colour pallet to make the whole thing jump off the page, with the parts that take place inside the swamp having their own distinct look from every other part of the book. It’s a shame that the story has come to an end, but this is still one of the best that Goosebumps and IDW have done together.

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Star Wars Adventures: Tales of Villainy #3 – Comic Review

 

Originally published on Set The Tape

The prequel era got a lot of hate when the films first came out. Fans unfairly judged them, calling them too political or too boring, saying they were full of clunky dialogue and bad acting. Whilst they’re not perfect films by any stretch I think it would be very unfair to call them bad, and the setting is one of the more interesting parts of the franchise. Thankfully, over time, and thanks to the addition of things like The Clone Wars this part of the Star Wars Saga has become looked upon more fondly; and with both of the stories in this issue of Star Wars Adventures: Tales of Villainy being set around that time, fans of the prequels are going to really enjoy this.

The first story, ‘Life Day’, written by Michael Moreci with art by Megan Levens and Charlie Kirchoff, is set before the events of The Phantom Menace, and we join a young Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon Jinn as they visit the Wookiee home-world of Kashyyyk. Qui-Gon has brought Obi-Wan there to teach him about Life Day, a celebration that fans first encountered in the Star Wars Holiday Special and has become something of a joke over the years. Here we get to see that Life Day is a festival that’s very special to the Wookiees, and that it mirrors the Jedi views on the connection to The Force, and balance within it.

It’s really nice to see more of Qui-Gon, and the way he’s exploring the different aspects of The Force, particularly The Living Force, certainly seems to fit with things that we’ve learnt about this individualistic Jedi Master. We get to see how important peace was to Qui-Gon, how it shaped his view of the universe, and we also get to see more of him and Obi-Wan together; something we definitely didn’t get enough of in the films.

Obviously, this wouldn’t be a story about villainy if it were just the two Jedi chilling with the Wookiees and celebrating life, though that would be a nice story to read. Instead, things go wrong, things that nicely mirror some of the episodes of The Clone Wars, and further build upon some of the lore established in that series, even down to some designs being reused here. Without giving away too much, it’s a nice surprise when the story takes its dramatic turn, and leaves the story on a cliffhanger that will leave the reader eager for the next issue.

The second story, ‘The Hostage’ is written by Shane McCarthy and has art from the same team as the first half of the issue. This is a standalone story that fits into the events of the fifth season of The Clone Wars, when Maul and his brother Savage were going around the galaxy forming a criminal empire over which to rule.

The Maul story-line was one of the highlights of The Clone Wars, and led to some exciting things for the character in both that show and Star Wars Rebels, and I’m always happy to see more of this former Sith. Here the story shows how Maul plots to take over a rival criminal family, and the lengths that he’s willing to go to to succeed. It’s not some of the most exciting Maul content, there are no major shocks or lightsaber duels to wow you, but it is a good showcase for how devious a character he is.

The Phantom Menace had Maul as a savage dog, an attacker who was let off his leash by his master to go fight the Jedi. The expanded universe added a lot more layers to the character, showed that he was also a clever tactician, and someone who had learnt to plan ahead. This story takes those aspects of the character and demonstrates how he can be formidable in less obvious ways.

The third issue of Star Wars Adventures: Tales of Villainy is easily the best of the series so far, with a solid creative team and stories that actually seem to add thing to the universe, and flesh out the main characters in ways the other issues just fell short of. More of this please IDW.

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Ghost Species by James Bradley - Book Review

 

'When scientist Kate Larkin joins a secretive project to re-engineer the climate by resurrecting extinct species, she becomes enmeshed in another, even more clandestine program to recreate our long-lost relatives, the Neanderthals. But when the first of the children, a girl called Eve, is born, Kate finds herself torn between her duties as a scientist and her urge to protect their time-lost creation.

'Set against the backdrop of hastening climate catastrophe, Ghost Species is an exquisitely beautiful and deeply affecting exploration of connection and loss in an age of planetary trauma. For as Eve grows to adulthood she and Kate must face the question of who and what she is. Is she natural or artificial? Human or non-human? And perhaps most importantly, as civilisation unravels around them, is Eve the ghost species, or are we?'

Climate change is something that is becoming harder and harder to ignore, something that isn't just a vague threat that exists in some undefined future, but something that we're seeing the effects of on an almost every day basis. As such, more and more books are turning to this topic, exploring the effects that a changing world is having on society, of asking what could come next for humanity if we don't try to do something to stop our destruction of the planet.

This is the world in which James Bradley has set his new novel, Ghost Species, a world where we know that climate change is a very real thing, something that is going to have a huge impact on our lives, and the lives of our children. Whilst the governments struggle to figure out what to do private corporations have started to step in to try and make a difference, one of these, The Foundation, has decided that whilst they're going to try and do what they can to slow down global changes they can't pretend that it's the same world anymore, and have to look for more extreme solutions. In this case, those solutions are reintroducing extinct species.

Okay, at this point you're probably thinking this sounds a bit like Jurassic Park, and whilst that's a very obvious comparison the story is very, very different. The Foundation isn't interested in creating creatures for entertainment or profit, instead setting their sights on making a real difference. They're trying to bring back animals that existed in more extreme versions of the world and putting them in the wild to try and slow down some of the changes that are going on. Mammoths, Tasmanian Tigers, Aurochs, giant Elk, there's no shortage to the types of creatures they want to bring back.

However, there's one species they want to recreate most, one that could make one of the biggest changes to the world, and one that is the most controversial; Neanderthals. It's thing project that scientists Kate and Jay find themselves brought in to work on. Recreating an extinct animal is one thing, but another branch of humanity presents a whole new challenge, and the two of them are instantly drawn to the project. 

I thought this was going to be the focus of the book, the team working on creating this new (old) version of humanity, but it actually went through this pretty quickly, cover the course of a few years withing a chapter or two, until we got to the birth of the first Neanderthal, Eve. This is when the book revealed it's real focus. It wasn't the story of a world on the brink, or a tale about scientists working to save the world, it's the story about the love a parent can have for their child, and about what it means to be human.

Realising that Eve would only ever be seen as an experiment, that she would never be shown the love and affection that she needed, Kate makes the decision to take Eve, running away from the facility with nothing but what she can carry with her. From this point on the book focuses on Kate and her 'daughter', and the struggles she faces raising her whilst hiding away from the Foundation.

The book makes several time jumps throughout the narrative, moving forward a few years every tie, showing Eve getting older. To begin with we follow Kate, watching this story unfold through her eyes as she tries her best to raise her child and give her a good life, all whilst worrying about her, about if she's going to be okay, if she's going to be the same as sapient people, and how the world will react to someone who looks and acts so differently. It's through Kate's perspective that the audience, and several characters, come to see Eve as human. Others refer to her like she's different, not quite human, and it's through Kate's insistence, her love for her, that people come to ignore their initial misgivings and see that this is a child, as human as you or I.

The last third of the book changes things up when Eve hits her teens and the perspective shifts over to her, and we see that whilst Kate sees Eve as a normal human girl, she herself struggles with how she fits into the world after she learns the truth of who she is and how she came to be. This is the part of the book that was easily the best, not only because we got into Eve's head and really learned how she felt, but because this was the point where the climate change had really ramped up, and the effects were impossible to ignore.

Now Even didn't just have to figure out what she thought of herself, or how she fit into a Homo Sapien world as a Neanderthal, but in a world that was falling apart. A world where drugs and medical supplies were becoming scarce, food was low, and people were having to flee across country to find safe places to live.

In some ways it seems like The Foundation was right, as it was in these latter stages of the book that Eve seemed to begin to find some kind of happiness, where she began to feel confident in who she was, whereas the rest of humanity was failing. It seemed like she was better prepared to survive in this changing world that we were. But despite this, she never seems truly content, her past experiences, her losses and the truth of who she was weighing heavily upon her.

I was a little angry at James Bradley for ending the book the way he does, for getting me so invested in Eve and then just ending the story. I wanted to spend more time with her. I wanted to see what happened next. I wanted to make sure she was going to be okay. I connected with her in a way that I didn't think I would. I'd seen her go from an idea, to a miracle baby, to an amazingly layered young woman. I laughed with her, and cried at her tragedies. She was an amazing person to get to read about, and I didn't want that to end.

James Bradley took a concept that I thought would be about spectacle, much like other stories where extinct species are brought back to life I thought that Ghost Species was going to be about spectacle, that perhaps this was going to be a story to explore the dangers of this science and the hubris of man. Instead, it became a story where the people mattered most, where the focus wasn't science out of control or the desolation of the planet, but about the love people have for each other, and how even at the end of the world that's still one of the most important things.

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Darth Vader #10 - Comic Review

 

The current story in Darth Vader continues to tease more insight into the planet of Exogol as the Sith Lord makes his way to Palpatine's hidden world looking for answers.

There isn't a huge amount of story that happens in this issue, instead Greg Pak is using his time to spread out the story and show just how brutal and skilled Vader is, throwing huge obstacles in his way. Upon arriving at the nebula that surrounds Exogol Vader and his prisoner, the Sith assassin Ochi, come face to face with a summa-verminoth, a giant space monster that fans will be familiar with from Solo: A Star Wars Story.

Not only is this huge, Cthulhu-like monster blocking their path to the planet, but three Star Destroyers are blocking their rear, ships that aren't there to help Vader. Under the command of Sly Moore, Palpatine's Umbaran aid. Rather than assisting Vader with the monstrosity, she sends dozens of TIE Fighters against him, determined to kill him. Luckily for him, Vader is an amazing pilot, and used to flying in a Jedi Starfighter, and is able to survive the assault and escapes into the nebula.

During the flight through the nebula Vader is subjected to a series of visions in which he sees his defeat at the hands of Obi-Wan, as well as imagining Luke killing him and joining with the Emperor. Once landing on the planet Vader discovers that the summa-verminoth has followed him, and uses The Force to bring it down, bending it to his will. The final page of the comic sees Vader riding atop this giant monster as he approaches Palpatine's Sith temple.

So yeah, no a hug amount happened in regards to moving the story forward, but that was still a hell of an impressive issue. Whether it was Vader proving to be a match for entire squadrons of TIE Fighters even though he was in a decades old ship with and escape pod strapped to it, or him riding a gigantic space monster like an absolute boss, you can't deny that this issue didn't sell Vader as a truly terrifying individual.

With a book that's centred on a character like Vader, one that we know isn't going to die here, who's going to be alive for the events of Return of the Jedi, and will be by the Emperor's side there's not a huge amount you can do in regards to peril. We're not going to think that anything seriously bad is going to happen to the man, because they can't kill him; but this story has done a lot to push him in less obvious ways, testing him to his limits in other regards. Here it's the mental strain he's made to go through when travelling through the nebula, forced to face visions that are designed to disturb him. Considering that Vader is quite a different person in Return of the Jedi than he was in Empire Strikes Back, with the goodness within him closer to the surface and easier for Luke to reach, perhaps his journey here, and what he could come to discover inside the Sith temple will help the old Anakin start to break through.

With this issue out of the way the stage is set for some interesting stuff in the next one. We could be getting more insight into the plans Palpatine had in place. We could get hints at Snoke and his creation. We might learn very little that ties into The Rise of Skywalker, but whatever Vader finds inside that temple it's sure to be exciting, especially with the cover for the next issue teases him going up against dozens of light sabre wielding Sith acolytes.

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