The 1980s enjoys a privileged, some might even argue inflated position in the sci-fi pantheon. In the US, it was the decade that gave us two thirds of the original Star Wars trilogy, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters, Terminator and Tron. In TV land, Star Trek got a brand new Generation, Quantums Leapt, Knights Rode, and of course, Alf.
But on the other side of the pond, British science fiction television was doing things the way we British always have – for less money, and a bit more bleak. But it wasn’t all creepy John Wyndham adaptations and hostile alien invasions, the 1980s also delivered a couple of British space comedy classics, along with the most underrated series in sci-fi history.
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Stream on: purchase-only on Sky Store, Google Play, Amazon (UK); disc import only (US)
For our money, still the only decent adaptation of John...
But on the other side of the pond, British science fiction television was doing things the way we British always have – for less money, and a bit more bleak. But it wasn’t all creepy John Wyndham adaptations and hostile alien invasions, the 1980s also delivered a couple of British space comedy classics, along with the most underrated series in sci-fi history.
The Day of the Triffids (1981)
Stream on: purchase-only on Sky Store, Google Play, Amazon (UK); disc import only (US)
For our money, still the only decent adaptation of John...
- 2/2/2024
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
UK indie producer and publisher B7 Media has announced a new platform specifically for independently produced audio drama and related audio content and will be available as both an iOS and Android App and its own website www.Audioteria.com.
Audioteria is a dedicated digital platform whose aim is to promote, market and distribute via a global download and streaming (iOS or Android) app, the very best of independently produced audio drama, enhanced audiobooks and audio theatre. It will also provide a home for previously broadcast content, now out of license, that hasn’t yet found a home anywhere else.
Listeners will be able to register (with no monthly subscription) and purchase their chosen title via the Audioteria website. Their purchase will immediately appear on the Audioteria app in their personal library to be played anywhere, at any time.
“As an independent audio drama producer ourselves, we have long been...
Audioteria is a dedicated digital platform whose aim is to promote, market and distribute via a global download and streaming (iOS or Android) app, the very best of independently produced audio drama, enhanced audiobooks and audio theatre. It will also provide a home for previously broadcast content, now out of license, that hasn’t yet found a home anywhere else.
Listeners will be able to register (with no monthly subscription) and purchase their chosen title via the Audioteria website. Their purchase will immediately appear on the Audioteria app in their personal library to be played anywhere, at any time.
“As an independent audio drama producer ourselves, we have long been...
- 10/25/2023
- Podnews.net
This article contains spoilers
John Carpenter is hands down one of America’s greatest filmmakers and composers, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a horror geek that doesn’t adore at least one of his movies. Born in 1948 to a a college music professor, Carpenter fell in love with cinema as a child and was out there making his own short films before he’d even started high school.
As the decades flew by, he was at the helm of some of the most beloved sci-fi and horror pictures of all time, whilst also composing the music for most of them, including the iconic scores for Halloween and Escape from New York.
Today, we’re ranking the director’s output, from Dark Star in 1974 to The Ward in 2010, but we should note that we haven’t included TV movies like Elvis or Someone’s Watching Me here, as we...
John Carpenter is hands down one of America’s greatest filmmakers and composers, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a horror geek that doesn’t adore at least one of his movies. Born in 1948 to a a college music professor, Carpenter fell in love with cinema as a child and was out there making his own short films before he’d even started high school.
As the decades flew by, he was at the helm of some of the most beloved sci-fi and horror pictures of all time, whilst also composing the music for most of them, including the iconic scores for Halloween and Escape from New York.
Today, we’re ranking the director’s output, from Dark Star in 1974 to The Ward in 2010, but we should note that we haven’t included TV movies like Elvis or Someone’s Watching Me here, as we...
- 9/1/2023
- by Kirsten Howard
- Den of Geek
The cinema of science fiction began to mature in the 1950s, concurrent with the arrival of the Cold War and the Atomic Age, as well as the growing sophistication of the literature. But it was during the 1960s that the genre really began to expand in different directions, still heavily influenced by the ideological paranoia and existential dread of the previous decade, but finding even more distinctive expressions of it.
At the same time, the 1960s was also the decade in which sci-fi movies truly started to become event films, not just B-movies and drive-in fodder, as evidenced by the likes of landmarks like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes, both released in 1968. There were other successes as well, some of them on our list below, but a lot of remarkable sci-fi films of the era did not initially score with critics, audiences, or either. Yet nuclear terror,...
At the same time, the 1960s was also the decade in which sci-fi movies truly started to become event films, not just B-movies and drive-in fodder, as evidenced by the likes of landmarks like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Planet of the Apes, both released in 1968. There were other successes as well, some of them on our list below, but a lot of remarkable sci-fi films of the era did not initially score with critics, audiences, or either. Yet nuclear terror,...
- 8/7/2023
- by Don Kaye
- Den of Geek
Warning: contains spoilers for series 8 episode 4
In 2017, Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi told a credulous tabloid that he hoped his next project after the Tardis would be a Steven Moffat-written revival of 1970s sitcom On the Buses. “I have got a Blakey in me,” Capaldi assured The Sun, referring to Stephen Lewis’ dyspeptic bus inspector character. Moffat ran with the joke, agreeing whole-heartedly that after Sherlock, bringing back On the Buses would be his natural next move.
Five years later, when Inside No. 9 creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton wanted to pull their audience’s leg, On the Buses once again served as a punch line. Among the first look images of series eight was one of the creators and cheeky 1970s sex comedy star Robin Askwith in full On the Buses costume. Finally! Shearsmith and Pemberton had taken up the much-repeated fan suggestion that they set one of...
In 2017, Twelfth Doctor Peter Capaldi told a credulous tabloid that he hoped his next project after the Tardis would be a Steven Moffat-written revival of 1970s sitcom On the Buses. “I have got a Blakey in me,” Capaldi assured The Sun, referring to Stephen Lewis’ dyspeptic bus inspector character. Moffat ran with the joke, agreeing whole-heartedly that after Sherlock, bringing back On the Buses would be his natural next move.
Five years later, when Inside No. 9 creators Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton wanted to pull their audience’s leg, On the Buses once again served as a punch line. Among the first look images of series eight was one of the creators and cheeky 1970s sex comedy star Robin Askwith in full On the Buses costume. Finally! Shearsmith and Pemberton had taken up the much-repeated fan suggestion that they set one of...
- 5/19/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Earlier today, we shared the news that Johan Renck, who executive produced and directed all five episodes of the HBO limited series Chernobyl, had walked away from the HBO Max series Dune: The Sisterhood, a show he was supposed to direct the first two episodes of, due to creative differences. Now The Hollywood Reporter has broken the news that Renck has already lined up another project. Renck will be directing a mini-series based on the 1951 science fiction novel The Day of the Triffids, written by John Wyndham, for Amazon Studios.
The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic tale of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds which sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population is blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion and small groups of sighted survivors of different social strata in England vie to survive.
The story has previously...
The Day of the Triffids is a post-apocalyptic tale of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds which sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population is blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion and small groups of sighted survivors of different social strata in England vie to survive.
The story has previously...
- 3/1/2023
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
The cordyceps fungal infection of "The Last of Us" may be the hottest infestation on television, but lest we forget John Wyndham's groundbreaking novel "The Day of the Triffids," which featured a tall, mobile, carnivorous plant species hellbent on eating us all. If the title sounds familiar, it's likely due to the film of the same name by Steve Sekely and Freddie Francis, or it's from singing the line "and I really got hot when I saw Janette Scott fight a Triffid that spits poison and kills," in the song "Science Fiction (Double Feature)" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
Johan Renck, director of the critically acclaimed HBO limited series, "Chernobyl" has been announced by The Hollywood Reporter as the latest to tackle Wyndham's novel, with a new series adaptation for Prime Video. Amazon Studios snagged the rights to the novel, looking to adapt the story as a collection of miniseries.
Johan Renck, director of the critically acclaimed HBO limited series, "Chernobyl" has been announced by The Hollywood Reporter as the latest to tackle Wyndham's novel, with a new series adaptation for Prime Video. Amazon Studios snagged the rights to the novel, looking to adapt the story as a collection of miniseries.
- 3/1/2023
- by BJ Colangelo
- Slash Film
Written by John Wyndham, the 1951 novel The Day of the Triffids has been adapted multiple times over the years, and The Wrap reports today that Amazon Studios is behind the latest adaptation. Amazon has acquired the rights to the novel, we’ve learned today.
The Wrap reminds, “The Day of the Triffids tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds that sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population, meanwhile, has been blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion.”
The website also reports, “Amazon Television is developing the property as a series of miniseries, detailing the invasion from multiple points of view in multiple cities. The project comes from Matt King’s division at Amazon Television, which is tasked with finding franchises and other IP that Amazon can use to build worlds from.”
Johan Renck (“Chernobyl”) is attached to direct.
The Wrap reminds, “The Day of the Triffids tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds that sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population, meanwhile, has been blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion.”
The website also reports, “Amazon Television is developing the property as a series of miniseries, detailing the invasion from multiple points of view in multiple cities. The project comes from Matt King’s division at Amazon Television, which is tasked with finding franchises and other IP that Amazon can use to build worlds from.”
Johan Renck (“Chernobyl”) is attached to direct.
- 3/1/2023
- by John Squires
- bloody-disgusting.com
Move over The Last of Us, there’s a new biological threat sprouting to annihilate mankind.
Johan Renck, who directed the acclaimed HBO series Chernobyl, is attached to helm The Day of the Triffids, an adaptation of the classic British science fiction novel by John Wyndham.
Amazon Studios picked up the rights to the novel, with Don Murphy and Susan Montford on board to executive produce via their Angryfilms banner. Jillian and Dennis DeFrehn of Preger Entertainment, the novel’s media rights holder, will also executive produce as will Renck and his partner Michael Parets at shingle Sinestra.
The 1951 novel is post-apocalyptic tale of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds which sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population is blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion and small groups of sighted survivors of different social strata in England vie to survive.
Johan Renck, who directed the acclaimed HBO series Chernobyl, is attached to helm The Day of the Triffids, an adaptation of the classic British science fiction novel by John Wyndham.
Amazon Studios picked up the rights to the novel, with Don Murphy and Susan Montford on board to executive produce via their Angryfilms banner. Jillian and Dennis DeFrehn of Preger Entertainment, the novel’s media rights holder, will also executive produce as will Renck and his partner Michael Parets at shingle Sinestra.
The 1951 novel is post-apocalyptic tale of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds which sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population is blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion and small groups of sighted survivors of different social strata in England vie to survive.
- 3/1/2023
- by Borys Kit
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Amazon Studios has acquired the rights to the British science fiction novel “The Day of the Triffids.”
Based on the 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by John Wyndham, “The Day of the Triffids” tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds that sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population, meanwhile, has been blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion.
The original novel tells the story of the invasion through the eyes of different people from different social classes in England and has been made into the 1962 feature film of the same name, along with two British miniseries that aired on the BBC in 1981 and 2009.
Also Read:
Spider-Man Noir Live-Action TV Series in the Works at Amazon
The 1981 miniseries was a major cultural phenomenon and remains a cult classic to this day. The 2009 miniseries was also on the BBC and garnered high ratings.
Based on the 1951 post-apocalyptic novel by John Wyndham, “The Day of the Triffids” tells the story of an alien invasion of Earth by a cloud of seeds that sprout sentient plants. A large portion of the population, meanwhile, has been blinded by a meteor shower in preparation for the invasion.
The original novel tells the story of the invasion through the eyes of different people from different social classes in England and has been made into the 1962 feature film of the same name, along with two British miniseries that aired on the BBC in 1981 and 2009.
Also Read:
Spider-Man Noir Live-Action TV Series in the Works at Amazon
The 1981 miniseries was a major cultural phenomenon and remains a cult classic to this day. The 2009 miniseries was also on the BBC and garnered high ratings.
- 3/1/2023
- by Umberto Gonzalez
- The Wrap
A TV series adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi classic The Day Of the Triffids has been put into fast-track development by Amazon Studios. According to sources, Johan Renick, Emmy winner for HBO’s Chernobyl, is attached to direct and executive produce. Don Murphy and Susan Montford executive produce for Angry Films.
With its post-apocalyptic setting and plot, Wyndham’s 1951 novel draws parallels to HBO’s breakout hit The Last Of Us. In The Day Of the Triffids, after most people in the world are blinded by a meteor shower, triffids — tall venomous, carnivorous plants — start killing the rest. The story centers on Bill Masen, a biologist who specializes in triffids. He leads survivors in their fight against the killer plants and at some point rescues a young sighted girls and travels with her for several days.
The English book has had three UK radio adaptations and a 1962 feature starring Howard Keel.
With its post-apocalyptic setting and plot, Wyndham’s 1951 novel draws parallels to HBO’s breakout hit The Last Of Us. In The Day Of the Triffids, after most people in the world are blinded by a meteor shower, triffids — tall venomous, carnivorous plants — start killing the rest. The story centers on Bill Masen, a biologist who specializes in triffids. He leads survivors in their fight against the killer plants and at some point rescues a young sighted girls and travels with her for several days.
The English book has had three UK radio adaptations and a 1962 feature starring Howard Keel.
- 3/1/2023
- by Nellie Andreeva
- Deadline Film + TV
Warning: contains plot spoilers for The Rig finale.
The Rig may have started out like a Doctor Who story missing the Tardis, but it ended up as an absorbing eco-thriller fable. Creator David Macpherson’s series layers sci-fi invention over geological theory to tell a story about the environmental extinction and the survival of planet Earth.
Set aboard a remote Scottish oil rig (is there any other kind of Scottish oil rig?), the six-part series follows the crew of the Kinloch Bravo platform. Following a mysterious tremor and the loss of all communications with the outside, the rig is surrounded by a thick fog, stranding them at sea.
The crew learns that their workplace is scheduled for decommissioning by energy giant Pictor. Tensions flare, and crewmember Baz (Calvin Demba) is exposed to the fog and mysteriously survives what would have been a fatal fall. When Baz starts having visions and ranting about rings and waves,...
The Rig may have started out like a Doctor Who story missing the Tardis, but it ended up as an absorbing eco-thriller fable. Creator David Macpherson’s series layers sci-fi invention over geological theory to tell a story about the environmental extinction and the survival of planet Earth.
Set aboard a remote Scottish oil rig (is there any other kind of Scottish oil rig?), the six-part series follows the crew of the Kinloch Bravo platform. Following a mysterious tremor and the loss of all communications with the outside, the rig is surrounded by a thick fog, stranding them at sea.
The crew learns that their workplace is scheduled for decommissioning by energy giant Pictor. Tensions flare, and crewmember Baz (Calvin Demba) is exposed to the fog and mysteriously survives what would have been a fatal fall. When Baz starts having visions and ranting about rings and waves,...
- 1/10/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
If police drama remains the bedrock of British TV commissions, with 2022 having welcomed crime series Karen Pirie, Marlow, Magpie Murders, The Responder, Sherwood and many more, broadcasters also gave us a glittering seam of new fantasy and horror. Last year saw a host of new British supernatural and sci-fi series, from Joe Barton’s sci-fi action-thriller The Lazarus Project and the criminally since-cancelled YA Netflix fantasy The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself, BBC Three teen horror Red Rose, Sky dark comedy The Baby, as well as a new telling of John Wyndham’s spooky children classic The Midwich Cuckoos.
Then there were shows that combined both threads, such as Amazon Prime’s mind-twisting The Devil’s Hour starring Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine, and Pete Jackson’s excellent debut Somewhere Boy. And some new British TV shows didn’t even feature a single murder, like Netflix’s adored Heartstopper graphic novel adaptation.
Then there were shows that combined both threads, such as Amazon Prime’s mind-twisting The Devil’s Hour starring Peter Capaldi and Jessica Raine, and Pete Jackson’s excellent debut Somewhere Boy. And some new British TV shows didn’t even feature a single murder, like Netflix’s adored Heartstopper graphic novel adaptation.
- 1/3/2023
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
How many bad shows can a good actor star in before you have to start considering the possibly uncomfortable reality that they are, in fact, a bad actor? Well, this is an experiment that Keeley Hawes seems to be undertaking. Her second project of the year, after a middling adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos, is the BBC’s new drama, Crossfire, written by Apple Tree Yard’s Louise Doughty. It finds Hawes trapped in a Spanish holiday resort as baby-faced gunmen go on the rampage. If her agent was looking for a project to make The Bodyguard look cerebral, boy did they find it.
Hawes is Jo, wife of Jason (Lee Ingleby) and mother of Adam (Noah Leggott) and Amara (Shalisha James-Davis). She’s just arrived on holiday with two other couples: Vikash Bhai’s Chinar and Anneika Rose’s Abhi, and Miriam (Josette Simon) and Ben (Daniel Ryan). The...
Hawes is Jo, wife of Jason (Lee Ingleby) and mother of Adam (Noah Leggott) and Amara (Shalisha James-Davis). She’s just arrived on holiday with two other couples: Vikash Bhai’s Chinar and Anneika Rose’s Abhi, and Miriam (Josette Simon) and Ben (Daniel Ryan). The...
- 9/20/2022
- by Nick Hilton
- The Independent - TV
Many of the movies John Carpenter has directed are frequently mentioned as some of the greatest genre movies ever made… but there are also Carpenter movies that don’t get referenced very often. One that you rarely hear about is his Village of the Damned (watch it Here), based on the John Wyndham novel The Midwich Cuckoos and a previous film adaptation that was released in 1960. We decided it’s time to give Carpenter’s Village of the Damned some attention, and you can find out what we had to say about it in the new episode of our video series The Black Sheep. Check it out in the embed above!
Village of the Damned has the following synopsis:
Ten months after the small California town of Midwich was struck by a mysterious event during which everyone in the village fell unconscious at once, 10 local women give birth on the same day.
Village of the Damned has the following synopsis:
Ten months after the small California town of Midwich was struck by a mysterious event during which everyone in the village fell unconscious at once, 10 local women give birth on the same day.
- 8/30/2022
- by Cody Hamman
- JoBlo.com
“The Midwich Cuckoos” is the new Brit-produced science fiction TV series, created by David Farr, based on the 1957 book by John Wyndham, starring Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley airing September 1, 2022 on Showcase:
“…in ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ all of the town's child-bearing aged women inexplicably fall pregnant. As these women give birth, ‘Midwich’ begins to realize these children are unlike any other.
“Each child resembles their mother but with alien additions. The government takes an immediate interest and imposes secrecy, paying the parents for their cooperation…”
Click the images to enlarge…...
“…in ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ all of the town's child-bearing aged women inexplicably fall pregnant. As these women give birth, ‘Midwich’ begins to realize these children are unlike any other.
“Each child resembles their mother but with alien additions. The government takes an immediate interest and imposes secrecy, paying the parents for their cooperation…”
Click the images to enlarge…...
- 8/26/2022
- by Unknown
- SneakPeek
A “sleeper” is a box office success that comes out of nowhere. And no one expected this modest 1960 British import, based on John Wyndham’s “The Midwich Cuckoos”, to catch the attention of a worldwide audience and inspire its own (some think even better) sequel. The glowing eyes effect on the alien children was not present in British prints, having been added via freeze frame by MGM for US release. Ronald Colman was to play the lead when the studio shelved the film over worries about controversy regarding its virgin birth plot. Once the project was reactivated Colman had passed away and George Sanders took the role. Remade in 1995.
The post Village of the Damned appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
The post Village of the Damned appeared first on Trailers From Hell.
- 6/10/2022
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Warning: contains Major spoilers for The Midwich Cuckoos episodes 1-7
The majority of changes made by screenwriter David Farr to the source material for Sky’s new adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos were tweaks rather than departures. In the seven-part series, Midwich is no longer a remote country village, but a commuter town within easy reach of London. Its lead character isn’t erudite author Gordon Zellaby, but child psychiatrist and single mother Dr Susannah Zellaby, played by Keeley Hawes. Book narrator Richard Gayford and his wife Janet are absent, replaced by new characters Zoe (Aisling Loftus), Sam and Dci Paul Haynes, played by Max Beesley.
Shifting the narrative perspective towards the story’s women reflects changes in gender politics between the 1950s and today. The same goes for the inclusion of a sequence in which the women of Midwich – mysteriously all pregnant at the same time following a town-wide...
The majority of changes made by screenwriter David Farr to the source material for Sky’s new adaptation of The Midwich Cuckoos were tweaks rather than departures. In the seven-part series, Midwich is no longer a remote country village, but a commuter town within easy reach of London. Its lead character isn’t erudite author Gordon Zellaby, but child psychiatrist and single mother Dr Susannah Zellaby, played by Keeley Hawes. Book narrator Richard Gayford and his wife Janet are absent, replaced by new characters Zoe (Aisling Loftus), Sam and Dci Paul Haynes, played by Max Beesley.
Shifting the narrative perspective towards the story’s women reflects changes in gender politics between the 1950s and today. The same goes for the inclusion of a sequence in which the women of Midwich – mysteriously all pregnant at the same time following a town-wide...
- 6/7/2022
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley are back to bring a bit of drama and sci-fi entertainment in the first-ever TV adaptation of the John Wyndham novel. With the story having already been adapted for the big screen twice in ‘The Village of The Damned, creator and writer David Farr infuses a socially relevant update to an outdated story.
The series, which is set in the small English commuter town of Midwich, follows the town’s inhabitants after encountering a complete electrical blackout one night. Befalling a blackout which sees every resident fall unconsciously only to wake the following day with some of its female inhabitants having mysteriously fallen pregnant.
In the first major change Farr has made to the original story, Hawes plays the show’s protagonist, psychotherapist Dr Susannah Zellaby. Having been absent from the town on the night of the event, Zellerby returns to find her own vulnerable...
The series, which is set in the small English commuter town of Midwich, follows the town’s inhabitants after encountering a complete electrical blackout one night. Befalling a blackout which sees every resident fall unconsciously only to wake the following day with some of its female inhabitants having mysteriously fallen pregnant.
In the first major change Farr has made to the original story, Hawes plays the show’s protagonist, psychotherapist Dr Susannah Zellaby. Having been absent from the town on the night of the event, Zellerby returns to find her own vulnerable...
- 6/6/2022
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
In John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos a remote village is inexplicably plunged into darkness and all the residents rendered unconscious. When they wake, all the women of childbearing age are suddenly pregnant. The children they give birth to are white haired aliens with powers of telepathy between each other. Talk about village of the damned (or rather perhaps don’t – creator David Farr likes the first half of the 1960 film version but not the second half and can’t stand the John Carpenter 1995 update).
This new version though, a seven part series for Sky, has updated Wyndham’s story and places a major focus on the differing relationships between parents and children (even when those children are aliens). Den of Geek sat down with Farr and episodes one and two director Alice Troughton to discuss attachment, body politics and that extraordinary birthing scene.
What’s your relationship to the...
This new version though, a seven part series for Sky, has updated Wyndham’s story and places a major focus on the differing relationships between parents and children (even when those children are aliens). Den of Geek sat down with Farr and episodes one and two director Alice Troughton to discuss attachment, body politics and that extraordinary birthing scene.
What’s your relationship to the...
- 6/3/2022
- by Rosie Fletcher
- Den of Geek
Warning: contains plot references to The Day of the Triffids, Chocky and The Midwich Cuckoos
Novelist John Wyndham’s genius lay in seeding menace among innocence. In The Day of the Triffids, the narrator drives through a bucolic country village but is unable to admire its delightful cottage gardens – partly because the world has ended, but also because the picture-postcard borders contain intruders: tall, swaying carnivorous plants with leathery green leaves and poison whips waiting to sting human flesh. Thus Wyndham turns that most pleasant and English of things, a flowerbed, into a deadly trap.
In Wyndham’s final novel Chocky, the threat arrives in the charmingly eccentric form of a child’s imaginary friend. In The Midwich Cuckoos, the unsettling element takes the shape of a cherubic, blonde-haired baby – or rather, 61 identical blonde babies foisted unexpectedly upon the women of Midwich after a village-wide blackout nine months earlier. In these stories,...
Novelist John Wyndham’s genius lay in seeding menace among innocence. In The Day of the Triffids, the narrator drives through a bucolic country village but is unable to admire its delightful cottage gardens – partly because the world has ended, but also because the picture-postcard borders contain intruders: tall, swaying carnivorous plants with leathery green leaves and poison whips waiting to sting human flesh. Thus Wyndham turns that most pleasant and English of things, a flowerbed, into a deadly trap.
In Wyndham’s final novel Chocky, the threat arrives in the charmingly eccentric form of a child’s imaginary friend. In The Midwich Cuckoos, the unsettling element takes the shape of a cherubic, blonde-haired baby – or rather, 61 identical blonde babies foisted unexpectedly upon the women of Midwich after a village-wide blackout nine months earlier. In these stories,...
- 6/2/2022
- by Louisa Mellor
- Den of Geek
"It felt like... I was visited." "I can feel life growing inside me." Sky TV has revealed an official trailer for an intriguing new sci-fi series debuting this summer called The Midwich Cuckoos. This is the kind of sci-fi we'll post about even if it is more TV. The film is an exciting modern-day reimagining of John Wyndham's science fiction classic novel first published in 1957. A small fictional village in England named Midwich is completely subdued by an alien presence for an entire day. Upon waking, it is discovered that numerous women in the town are pregnant. As the children of the phenomenon grow, it becomes clear they are not of this world. Sounds similar to that Icelandic series Katla recently, but with British sensibilities instead. This show stars Keeley Hawes, Max Beesley, Synnove Karlsen, Indica Watson, Alec Nicholls, Kimia Lamour, Natalia Harris, and Lara Rossi. Those kids looks super creepy!
- 1/28/2022
- by Alex Billington
- firstshowing.net
Sky has revealed the TV that’s set to get the nation talking with two first-look trailers showcasing the latest Sky Originals, ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’ and ‘The Rising.’
The Midwich Cuckoos
An exciting modern-day reimagining of John Wyndham’s science fiction classic starring Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley. Midwich is a quiet commuter town where nothing much happens. That is, until the twilight hours of a late summer’s day, when everyone within a set area of the town falls unconscious. The curious incident seems temporary and those affected regain consciousness, but every woman of child-bearing age inside the zone has suddenly and inexplicably fallen pregnant. As the children of the phenomenon grow, it becomes clear they are not of this world.
The series is written by David Farr, Sasha Hails, Namsi Khan and Laura Lomas. Alice Troughton is the lead director, with Jennifer Perrott serving as director.
Also in...
The Midwich Cuckoos
An exciting modern-day reimagining of John Wyndham’s science fiction classic starring Keeley Hawes and Max Beesley. Midwich is a quiet commuter town where nothing much happens. That is, until the twilight hours of a late summer’s day, when everyone within a set area of the town falls unconscious. The curious incident seems temporary and those affected regain consciousness, but every woman of child-bearing age inside the zone has suddenly and inexplicably fallen pregnant. As the children of the phenomenon grow, it becomes clear they are not of this world.
The series is written by David Farr, Sasha Hails, Namsi Khan and Laura Lomas. Alice Troughton is the lead director, with Jennifer Perrott serving as director.
Also in...
- 1/26/2022
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
“In Their World, Adults Are Not Allowed… To Live.” So runs the chilling tagline for the 1984 cult classic horror Children of the Corn, based on the short story by horror maestro Stephen King. Set in an agricultural town in Nebraska, the film tells the story of 12-year-old Isaac, a real little charmer who indoctrinates the local children into a religious cult that slaughters anyone over 18! The film, which cost under $1million to make, was a smash hit and spawned a horror franchise. To celebrate the release of a lavish Arrow Limited Edition box set of the trilogy, including the original film in Ultra High Definition, here’s a round-up of some other horror films featuring problematic pint-sizers which you won’t want to turn your back on for a moment…
Village of the Damned (1960)
Based on the famous sci-fi novel by John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos, this is the mother of all killer kids films,...
Village of the Damned (1960)
Based on the famous sci-fi novel by John Wyndham, The Midwich Cuckoos, this is the mother of all killer kids films,...
- 9/24/2021
- by Phil Wheat
- Nerdly
Exclusive: Hanna actress Cherrelle Skeete has joined Sky Original drama The Midwich Cuckoos, which is in production in the UK.
Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) and Max Beesley (The Outsider) lead the eight-part modern-day adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi novel of the same name. The series is written by David Farr, the British writer behind The Night Manager and Hanna, and centers on a British town where women fall pregnant with alien children.
Produced by ITV Studios-backed Route 24 and Snowed-In Productions in association with Sky Studios, Sasha Hails, Namsi Khan, and Laura Lomas are co-writers. Alice Troughton (Baghdad Central) is the lead director, with Jennifer Perrott (Gentleman Jack) serving as director. Exec producers are Marc Samuelson and Robert Cheek for Route 24 and Ruth Kenley-Letts and Neil Blair for Snowed-In Productions. Series producer is Eliza Mellor.
Skeete, who has joined in a supporting role, was most recently seen in Amazon...
Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard) and Max Beesley (The Outsider) lead the eight-part modern-day adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi novel of the same name. The series is written by David Farr, the British writer behind The Night Manager and Hanna, and centers on a British town where women fall pregnant with alien children.
Produced by ITV Studios-backed Route 24 and Snowed-In Productions in association with Sky Studios, Sasha Hails, Namsi Khan, and Laura Lomas are co-writers. Alice Troughton (Baghdad Central) is the lead director, with Jennifer Perrott (Gentleman Jack) serving as director. Exec producers are Marc Samuelson and Robert Cheek for Route 24 and Ruth Kenley-Letts and Neil Blair for Snowed-In Productions. Series producer is Eliza Mellor.
Skeete, who has joined in a supporting role, was most recently seen in Amazon...
- 6/23/2021
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
ITV Studios Sets Up Shop In Spain With Netflix Exec
Cattleya, the ITV Studios-backed Italian producer behind Gomorrah, is launching Spanish subsidiary Cattleya Producciones and has hired Netflix’s Arturo Díaz as managing director. The company will be ITV Studios’ first scripted producer in Spain. Díaz was a director of local language originals at Netflix, working on shows including Las Chicas de Cable, the streamer’s longest-running non-u.S. series. Cattleya Producciones will be overseen by Cattleya founder and co-ceo Riccardo Tozzi, alongside his co-CEOs Giovanni Stabilini and Marco Chimenz. Lisa Perrin, managing director of international production at ITV Studios, will also have oversight of the outfit. ITV Studios will distribute its drama series internationally.
Sky Sets Cast For ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’
Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard), and Max Beesley (The Outsider) are to lead the cast of Sky’s modern-day adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The...
Cattleya, the ITV Studios-backed Italian producer behind Gomorrah, is launching Spanish subsidiary Cattleya Producciones and has hired Netflix’s Arturo Díaz as managing director. The company will be ITV Studios’ first scripted producer in Spain. Díaz was a director of local language originals at Netflix, working on shows including Las Chicas de Cable, the streamer’s longest-running non-u.S. series. Cattleya Producciones will be overseen by Cattleya founder and co-ceo Riccardo Tozzi, alongside his co-CEOs Giovanni Stabilini and Marco Chimenz. Lisa Perrin, managing director of international production at ITV Studios, will also have oversight of the outfit. ITV Studios will distribute its drama series internationally.
Sky Sets Cast For ‘The Midwich Cuckoos’
Keeley Hawes (Bodyguard), and Max Beesley (The Outsider) are to lead the cast of Sky’s modern-day adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos. The...
- 4/28/2021
- by Tom Grater
- Deadline Film + TV
In 2021 Sky and Now TV are ramping up their slate of TV shows and films with a whopping 125 new Sky Originals.
For the first time ever, Sky will drop 30 new Sky Original films and 30 new
Sky Original documentaries, on top of new drama, comedy, entertainment and arts
series. Altogether that’s 50% more original TV and film than last year. Movie fans are in for a treat as Sky Cinema becomes the home of Sky Original film with at
least two new original films every month which will feature a host of A list actors from Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent to Janelle Monae.
Sky Original films will include ‘A Boy Called Christmas’, the origin story of Father
Christmas, re-imagined in Gil Keenan’s live-action adaptation of Matt Haig’s best-selling novel, and family favourites such as ‘Extinct’ and ‘Monster Family 2’. There are films inspired by true...
For the first time ever, Sky will drop 30 new Sky Original films and 30 new
Sky Original documentaries, on top of new drama, comedy, entertainment and arts
series. Altogether that’s 50% more original TV and film than last year. Movie fans are in for a treat as Sky Cinema becomes the home of Sky Original film with at
least two new original films every month which will feature a host of A list actors from Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman, Judi Dench, Jim Broadbent to Janelle Monae.
Sky Original films will include ‘A Boy Called Christmas’, the origin story of Father
Christmas, re-imagined in Gil Keenan’s live-action adaptation of Matt Haig’s best-selling novel, and family favourites such as ‘Extinct’ and ‘Monster Family 2’. There are films inspired by true...
- 1/26/2021
- by Zehra Phelan
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
Paapa Essiedu, a breakout star of BBC/HBO series I May Destroy You, is to headline a Sky action thriller that uses a similar narrative device to Groundhog Day and is written by Joe Barton, the newly-unveiled showrunner on HBO Max’s The Batman.
Eight-part Extinction follows the story of George (Essiedu), who begins to re-live time after witnessing the world end. He is recruited into an organization that harnesses this power to prevent global catastrophes, but goes rogue in a bid to save the woman he loves. It’s billed as a gripping exploration of memory, fate, and the limits of love.
Produced by War Of The Worlds maker Urban Myth Films, the series also features Tom Burke (Strike), Anjli Mohindra (Bodyguard), and Caroline Quentin (Men Behaving Badly). Marco Kreuzpaintner, the director of Amazon’s Beat, is attached to direct.
Extinction is slated for 2022 and was announced on Monday...
Eight-part Extinction follows the story of George (Essiedu), who begins to re-live time after witnessing the world end. He is recruited into an organization that harnesses this power to prevent global catastrophes, but goes rogue in a bid to save the woman he loves. It’s billed as a gripping exploration of memory, fate, and the limits of love.
Produced by War Of The Worlds maker Urban Myth Films, the series also features Tom Burke (Strike), Anjli Mohindra (Bodyguard), and Caroline Quentin (Men Behaving Badly). Marco Kreuzpaintner, the director of Amazon’s Beat, is attached to direct.
Extinction is slated for 2022 and was announced on Monday...
- 1/25/2021
- by Jake Kanter
- Deadline Film + TV
David Farr, writer of The Night Manager and Hanna, is taking a trip to The Village of the Damned. Farr is set to adapt John Wyndham’s novel The Midwich Cuckoos, which inspired Village of the Damned, into an eight-part series. The book concerns a small town where all of the women mysteriously become pregnant on the same day, eventually […]
The post ‘Village of the Damned’ TV Series Coming From ‘The Night Manager’ Writer appeared first on /Film.
The post ‘Village of the Damned’ TV Series Coming From ‘The Night Manager’ Writer appeared first on /Film.
- 7/3/2020
- by Chris Evangelista
- Slash Film
Friday has brought the frightful news that David Farr, the writer behind The Night Manager and Hanna, is in the process of developing an adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos for television. As per Deadline's exclusive report, Farr is converting the novel into an eight-part series for Sky, a European broadcaster owned by Comcast. Previously Wyndham’s…...
- 7/3/2020
- by Steve Seigh
- JoBlo.com
Exclusive: David Farr, the British writer behind The Night Manager and Hanna, is developing an adaptation of John Wyndham’s sci-fi novel The Midwich Cuckoos for Comcast-owned European broadcaster Sky.
Deadline can reveal that Farr is working to turn the novel into an eight-part series after it was the inspiration for two movies last century, both of which were titled Village Of The Damned.
The TV remake is housed at ITV Studios-backed Route 24, which is run by Arlington Road producer Marc Samuelson, and Snowed-In Productions, the sister company of Bronte Film and Television, which produces J.K Rowling dramas including The Casual Vacancy and Strike.
Wyndham’s 1957 story centers on the sleepy English village of Midwich, where a strange sequence of events culminates in the community’s women falling pregnant with alien children with glowing eyes and otherworldly powers. It ranks alongside The Day Of The Triffids as...
Deadline can reveal that Farr is working to turn the novel into an eight-part series after it was the inspiration for two movies last century, both of which were titled Village Of The Damned.
The TV remake is housed at ITV Studios-backed Route 24, which is run by Arlington Road producer Marc Samuelson, and Snowed-In Productions, the sister company of Bronte Film and Television, which produces J.K Rowling dramas including The Casual Vacancy and Strike.
Wyndham’s 1957 story centers on the sleepy English village of Midwich, where a strange sequence of events culminates in the community’s women falling pregnant with alien children with glowing eyes and otherworldly powers. It ranks alongside The Day Of The Triffids as...
- 7/3/2020
- by Jake Kanter
- Deadline Film + TV
The Oscar winning co-writer and producer of Brokeback Mountain takes us on a cinematic journey through her life, and talks about the pleasures of writing with Larry McMurtry and Joe Bonnano, and what Ken Kesey’s favorite movie was.
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Good Night, And Good Luck (2005)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Red River (1948)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Hud (1963)
Piranha (1978)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
They Drive By Night (1940)
Kings Row (1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
The Grapes of Wrath (1942)
Buffalo Bill (1944)
Laura (1944)
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)
The Day of the Triffids (1963)
Moby Dick (1956)
Village of the Damned (1960)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Brazil (1985)
Lost In La Mancha (2002)
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1996)
The Fisher King (1991)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
A History of Violence...
Show Notes: Movies Referenced In This Episode
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Good Night, And Good Luck (2005)
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Red River (1948)
The Last Picture Show (1971)
Hud (1963)
Piranha (1978)
Battleship Potemkin (1925)
They Drive By Night (1940)
Kings Row (1942)
The Ox-Bow Incident (1942)
The Grapes of Wrath (1942)
Buffalo Bill (1944)
Laura (1944)
Where The Sidewalk Ends (1950)
The Day of the Triffids (1963)
Moby Dick (1956)
Village of the Damned (1960)
Written on the Wind (1956)
Magnificent Obsession (1954)
There’s Always Tomorrow (1956)
All That Heaven Allows (1955)
Twelve Monkeys (1995)
Brazil (1985)
Lost In La Mancha (2002)
The Hamster Factor and Other Tales of Twelve Monkeys (1996)
The Fisher King (1991)
Dr. Strangelove (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
The Deer Hunter (1978)
The Godfather (1972)
The Godfather Part II (1974)
A History of Violence...
- 6/23/2020
- by Kris Millsap
- Trailers from Hell
I'm writing this during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis. It's a strange time to be writing about eco horror, but the work still needs to be done, and with 3 billion people around the globe in some sort of lockdown, we need books more than ever before. My new novel Eden is released April 7th in the USA on ebook and paperback, and May 25th in the UK. My publishers are calling it an eco horror thriller, and I'm very happy with that description. When I set out to write a novel I'm never too concerned about which 'genre' it might fall into, but Eden definitely arose partly from my love of nature, and my fear over what we've been doing to our world.
Because sometimes, the world bites back.
As a nature lover, there's a deep history of eco horror novels and movies that might have subconsciously influenced and inspired me during my writing of Eden.
Because sometimes, the world bites back.
As a nature lover, there's a deep history of eco horror novels and movies that might have subconsciously influenced and inspired me during my writing of Eden.
- 4/7/2020
- by Tim Lebbon
- DailyDead
While most of us may presently feel locked in a John Wyndham style dystopian sci-fi/nightmare, no doubt many will also be burrowing into their streaming services, desperately seeking escapism. While doing so it’s well worth keeping an eye out for Vivarium.
While not quite mirroring our current nightmare reality, writer/director Lorcan Finnegan’s film (released across viewing platforms on Friday 27th March) is a startlingly unique and enthralling sci-fi thriller (with a culty Wyndham edge and a pinch of The Truman Show), that taps into different themes, paranoias and pertinent uncertainties of present times.
The story sees first time property purchasers Gemma (Imogen Poots) and her husband Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) buy a seemingly perfect suburban house but soon find themselves locked in a labyrinthine nightmare from which they cannot escape.
Way back in the Autumn of 2019, HeyUGuys met with the film’s lead actress Imogen Poots while...
While not quite mirroring our current nightmare reality, writer/director Lorcan Finnegan’s film (released across viewing platforms on Friday 27th March) is a startlingly unique and enthralling sci-fi thriller (with a culty Wyndham edge and a pinch of The Truman Show), that taps into different themes, paranoias and pertinent uncertainties of present times.
The story sees first time property purchasers Gemma (Imogen Poots) and her husband Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) buy a seemingly perfect suburban house but soon find themselves locked in a labyrinthine nightmare from which they cannot escape.
Way back in the Autumn of 2019, HeyUGuys met with the film’s lead actress Imogen Poots while...
- 3/27/2020
- by Daniel Goodwin
- HeyUGuys.co.uk
“Kinder der Eisigen Dunkelheit!” If those words don’t give you a chill, you may be one of ‘The Damned.’ Joseph Losey’s fascinatingly morbid reflection on atomic terror was too much for England in 1961, wasn’t released in the U.S. for four full years, and then only after being shorn of nine minutes of footage. An ‘impossible’ Cold War scenario puts military authority on the same moral plane as delinquent street thugs. Losey transplants his subversive sensibility to England, and the result is one of the top political sci-fi tales of all time.
These are the Damned
Blu-ray
Explosive Media GmbH
1961 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date June 13, 2019 /Sie Sind Verdammt / Available from Amazon.de
Starring: Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors, Alexander Knox, Oliver Reed, Walter Gotell, James Villiers, Tom Kempinski, Kenneth Cope, Brian Oulton, Rachel Clay, Caroline Sheldon, Rebecca Dignam, Siobhan Taylor, Nicholas Clay.
Cinematography:...
These are the Damned
Blu-ray
Explosive Media GmbH
1961 / B&w / 2:35 widescreen / 95 min. / Street Date June 13, 2019 /Sie Sind Verdammt / Available from Amazon.de
Starring: Macdonald Carey, Shirley Anne Field, Viveca Lindfors, Alexander Knox, Oliver Reed, Walter Gotell, James Villiers, Tom Kempinski, Kenneth Cope, Brian Oulton, Rachel Clay, Caroline Sheldon, Rebecca Dignam, Siobhan Taylor, Nicholas Clay.
Cinematography:...
- 7/6/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Inquiring minds want to know — why you’re thinking about a Brick Wall. John Wyndham’s diabolically clever alien invasion fantasy is taken straight from nature: children fathered by who-knows-what are found to possess a hive mentality and brain-powers that we puny Earthlings cannot oppose. Is it simply Us against Them, or was this perhaps a paranoid image of anti-social, dangerous 1950s teens? The CineSavant review is a full essay this time.
Village of the Damned
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1960 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date July 31, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn,
Laurence Naismith.
Cinematography: Geoffrey Faithfull
Film Editor: Gordon Hales
Special Effects: Tom Howard
Original Music: Ron Goodwin
Written by Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, Ronald Kinnoch from the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
Produced by Ronald Kinnoch
Directed by Wolf Rilla
These are the eyes that Hypnotize!
The...
Village of the Damned
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1960 / B&W / 1:85 widescreen / 77 min. / Street Date July 31, 2018 / available through the WBshop / 21.99
Starring: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley, Martin Stephens, Michael Gwynn,
Laurence Naismith.
Cinematography: Geoffrey Faithfull
Film Editor: Gordon Hales
Special Effects: Tom Howard
Original Music: Ron Goodwin
Written by Stirling Silliphant, Wolf Rilla, Ronald Kinnoch from the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
Produced by Ronald Kinnoch
Directed by Wolf Rilla
These are the eyes that Hypnotize!
The...
- 7/10/2018
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
This first screen treatment of John Wyndham’s gripping science fiction novel took many liberties with the original, but the innate power of the concept of alien invaders blinding Earth’s populace has turned a troubled production into a semi-classic. Out of circulation for years, it’s been painstakingly restored by longtime Triffids fan Michael Hyatt, whose refurbished version was unveiled a few years ago at the Turner Classic Film Festival in La. Remade as two British television mini-series in 1981 and 1997.
- 3/7/2018
- by TFH Team
- Trailers from Hell
Andrei Tarkovsky’s bizarre philosophical science fiction epic may be his most successful picture overall — every image and word makes its precise desired effect. Three daring men defy the law to penetrate ‘the Zone’ and learn the truth behind the notion that a place called The Room exists where all wishes are granted. Plenty of art films promise profound ideas, but this one delivers.
Stalker
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 888
1979 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 161 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 18, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Alisa Freindlikh, Natasha Abramova.
Cinematography: Alexander Knyazhinsky
Film Editor: Lyudmila Feyginova
Original Music: Eduard Artemyev
Written by Andrei Tarkovsky and Arkady Struagtsky, Boris Strugatsky from their novel Roadside Picnic.
Produced by Aleksandra Demidova
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
If the definition of film artist is ‘one who goes his own way,’ Andrei Tarkovsky qualifies mightily. Reportedly cursed with a halting career...
Stalker
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 888
1979 / Color / 1:37 flat full frame / 161 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date July 18, 2017 / 39.95
Starring: Aleksandr Kaidanovsky, Anatoly Solonitsyn, Nikolai Grinko, Alisa Freindlikh, Natasha Abramova.
Cinematography: Alexander Knyazhinsky
Film Editor: Lyudmila Feyginova
Original Music: Eduard Artemyev
Written by Andrei Tarkovsky and Arkady Struagtsky, Boris Strugatsky from their novel Roadside Picnic.
Produced by Aleksandra Demidova
Directed by Andrei Tarkovsky
If the definition of film artist is ‘one who goes his own way,’ Andrei Tarkovsky qualifies mightily. Reportedly cursed with a halting career...
- 8/19/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Mark Harrison Jul 3, 2017
Music is a vital part of Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End. We take a look in more detail right here...
This feature contains major spoilers for Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End.
Edgar Wright's films are often likened to musicals, with his precise use of editing and shot choices giving us some of the most stylish comedy films of the century. His latest, Baby Driver, isn't a comedy per se, but “a musical with car chases”, or “An American In Paris on wheels and crack smoke”, as an elated Guillermo del Toro described it on Twitter.
Centring around Ansel Elgort's Baby, a getaway driver who does his best work while listening to a personal soundtrack, it seems like the film Wright was born to make. He had the idea for the film after making his first feature,...
Music is a vital part of Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End. We take a look in more detail right here...
This feature contains major spoilers for Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World's End.
Edgar Wright's films are often likened to musicals, with his precise use of editing and shot choices giving us some of the most stylish comedy films of the century. His latest, Baby Driver, isn't a comedy per se, but “a musical with car chases”, or “An American In Paris on wheels and crack smoke”, as an elated Guillermo del Toro described it on Twitter.
Centring around Ansel Elgort's Baby, a getaway driver who does his best work while listening to a personal soundtrack, it seems like the film Wright was born to make. He had the idea for the film after making his first feature,...
- 6/29/2017
- Den of Geek
If we’re going to use it as an insult, let’s define our terms.
The film industry seems to have no shortage of words that either serve as synonyms or subsets of “adaptation,” most of which are brought to you by the letter “R”: reboot, reimagining, rendition, redo, revival, retelling, recreation, reanimation (and looking to the other 25 letters in the alphabet, version, homage, makeover, update). One, however, is not treated quite like the others, and that word is “remake.” When filmmakers bring it up by choice, it usually seems to be to explain why their films should not be thought of by that term, thank you very much.
Perhaps you know exactly what I’m talking about. Or perhaps you think I’m reading far too much into things. After going through over 500 pages of research on remakes and adaptations, I myself thought the latter just as possible as the former.
So...
The film industry seems to have no shortage of words that either serve as synonyms or subsets of “adaptation,” most of which are brought to you by the letter “R”: reboot, reimagining, rendition, redo, revival, retelling, recreation, reanimation (and looking to the other 25 letters in the alphabet, version, homage, makeover, update). One, however, is not treated quite like the others, and that word is “remake.” When filmmakers bring it up by choice, it usually seems to be to explain why their films should not be thought of by that term, thank you very much.
Perhaps you know exactly what I’m talking about. Or perhaps you think I’m reading far too much into things. After going through over 500 pages of research on remakes and adaptations, I myself thought the latter just as possible as the former.
So...
- 3/23/2017
- by Ciara Wardlow
- FilmSchoolRejects.com
Do rediscovered ‘lost’ movies always disappoint? This Depression-era pre-Code science fiction disaster thriller was unique in its day, and its outrageously ambitious special effects –New York City is tossed into a blender — were considered the state of the art. Sidney Blackmer and a fetching Peggy Shannon fight off rapacious gangs in what may be the first post-apocalyptic survival thriller.
Deluge
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 67 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Peggy Shannon, Lois Wilson, Sidney Blackmer, Lane Chandler, Samuel S. Hinds, Fred Kohler, Matt Moore, Edward Van Sloan .
Cinematography: Norbert Brodine
Film Editor: Martin G. Cohn, Rose Loewinger
Special Effects: Ned Mann, Williams Wiliams, Russell Lawson, Ernie Crockett, Victor Scheurich, Carl Wester
Original Music: Val Burton
Written by Warren Duff, John F. Goodrich from the novel by Sydney Fowler Wright
Produced by Samuel Bischoff, Burt Kelly, William Saal
Directed by Felix E. Feist...
Deluge
Blu-ray
Kl Studio Classics
1933 / B&W / 1:37 flat Academy / 67 min. / Street Date February 21, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95
Starring Peggy Shannon, Lois Wilson, Sidney Blackmer, Lane Chandler, Samuel S. Hinds, Fred Kohler, Matt Moore, Edward Van Sloan .
Cinematography: Norbert Brodine
Film Editor: Martin G. Cohn, Rose Loewinger
Special Effects: Ned Mann, Williams Wiliams, Russell Lawson, Ernie Crockett, Victor Scheurich, Carl Wester
Original Music: Val Burton
Written by Warren Duff, John F. Goodrich from the novel by Sydney Fowler Wright
Produced by Samuel Bischoff, Burt Kelly, William Saal
Directed by Felix E. Feist...
- 2/21/2017
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Just when they thought they were safe... revenge pays them a visit. Fox Trap will be released in the Us and UK on DVD and Digital in February of 2017, and we have the exclusive reveal of the film's poster and several stills. Also in today's Highlights: Mondo's The Greasy Strangler items, a Q&A with Pandorica director Tom Paton, UK release details for Let's Be Evil, and info on The Truncated Nightmare Hour: Live! podcast.
Exclusive Fox Trap Poster and Stills: "After a terrible accident leaving a young girl disabled, eight years later the group responsible are invited to a remote manor house in the countryside for a class reunion. Little do they know, they are being targeted by a masked maniac hell bent on revenge.
The cast includes Klariza Clayton (Harry Brown, Blood Money, Skins), Scott Chambers (Chicken, Hush, The Hippopotamus), Alex Sawyer (House of Anubis), Kate Greer, Becky Fletcher,...
Exclusive Fox Trap Poster and Stills: "After a terrible accident leaving a young girl disabled, eight years later the group responsible are invited to a remote manor house in the countryside for a class reunion. Little do they know, they are being targeted by a masked maniac hell bent on revenge.
The cast includes Klariza Clayton (Harry Brown, Blood Money, Skins), Scott Chambers (Chicken, Hush, The Hippopotamus), Alex Sawyer (House of Anubis), Kate Greer, Becky Fletcher,...
- 10/5/2016
- by Tamika Jones
- DailyDead
It's a minor -- very minor -- Terence Fisher Sci-Fi suspenser that reaches the bare genre minimum and nothing more. Love the title and love those great stills, but when it's finished you're going to be saying, 'Now all I need is a good alien invasion movie!' The Earth Dies Screaming Blu-ray Kl Studio Classics 1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 62 excruciating minutes of horror / Street Date October 4, 2016 / available through Kl Studio Classics / 29.95 Starring Willard Parker, Virginia Field, Dennis Price, Thorley Walters, Vanda Godsell, David Spenser, Anna Palk. Cinematography Arthur Lavis Film Editor Robert Winter Makeup Harold Fletcher Original Music Elisabeth Lutyens Written by Henry Cross (Harry Spalding) Produced by Robert L. Lippert, Jack Parsons Directed by Terence Fisher
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
So I guess we have to add a third choice for the end of the world: a Bang, a Whimper... and now a Scream. Low-budget science fiction didn't...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
So I guess we have to add a third choice for the end of the world: a Bang, a Whimper... and now a Scream. Low-budget science fiction didn't...
- 9/27/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Young ‘hungries’ are humanity’s best hope of survival in this smart twist on the zombie movie starring Glenn Close and Gemma Arterton
This fiercely intelligent British chiller from Scottish director Colm McCarthy, whose small-screen credits include Doctor Who, Sherlock and Peaky Blinders, breathes new life into age-old horror tropes, taking familiar fears of zombies, the apocalypse and eerie children and spinning them in surprising ways. Although writer Mike “Mr” Carey’s narrative about a fungal plague that turns victims into cannibalistic “hungries” occupies a post-28 Days Later landscape, the central obsessions explored here are closer to the identity crises of Never Let Me Go (both book and film), with a strong underlying strain of the very British weirdness of John Wyndham.
The budget may have been relatively constrained (£4.4m), but not so the ambition of the film-makers who conjure a gripping genre picture as fleet-footed as its nimbly marauding zombies,...
This fiercely intelligent British chiller from Scottish director Colm McCarthy, whose small-screen credits include Doctor Who, Sherlock and Peaky Blinders, breathes new life into age-old horror tropes, taking familiar fears of zombies, the apocalypse and eerie children and spinning them in surprising ways. Although writer Mike “Mr” Carey’s narrative about a fungal plague that turns victims into cannibalistic “hungries” occupies a post-28 Days Later landscape, the central obsessions explored here are closer to the identity crises of Never Let Me Go (both book and film), with a strong underlying strain of the very British weirdness of John Wyndham.
The budget may have been relatively constrained (£4.4m), but not so the ambition of the film-makers who conjure a gripping genre picture as fleet-footed as its nimbly marauding zombies,...
- 9/25/2016
- by Mark Kermode, Observer film critic
- The Guardian - Film News
Ryan Lambie Published Date Wednesday, September 21, 2016 - 06:13
How far are we willing to go to save our species? That’s a question posed near the start of The Girl With All The Gifts, a variant strain of zombie movie adapted from the M R Carey novel of the same name. In a cold concrete bunker somewhere in the UK, the equally icy Dr Caldwell (Glenn Close) is working to find a cure for an infectious disease which has swept the globe: a form of fungus which turns its human hosts into Hungries - fast-moving flesh-eaters in the 28 Days Later mode.
The greater part of the bunker appears to be a prison, each cell containing a single, seemingly ordinary child. Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is the smartest of them all; smart enough that she can reel off elements on the periodic table without pausing for thought. But like the other children,...
How far are we willing to go to save our species? That’s a question posed near the start of The Girl With All The Gifts, a variant strain of zombie movie adapted from the M R Carey novel of the same name. In a cold concrete bunker somewhere in the UK, the equally icy Dr Caldwell (Glenn Close) is working to find a cure for an infectious disease which has swept the globe: a form of fungus which turns its human hosts into Hungries - fast-moving flesh-eaters in the 28 Days Later mode.
The greater part of the bunker appears to be a prison, each cell containing a single, seemingly ordinary child. Melanie (Sennia Nanua) is the smartest of them all; smart enough that she can reel off elements on the periodic table without pausing for thought. But like the other children,...
- 9/15/2016
- Den of Geek
Alex Westthorp Sep 14, 2016
Did fantasy dramas Chocky, The Box Of Delights and Dramarama leave an impression on you as a kid? Revisit those nightmares here...
Spooky, always magical and occasionally downright scary dramas are the bedrock of kids' television. For me, the pinnacle of this sort of programme was reached in the 1980s. The decade saw a new approach to both traditional and contemporary drama by both UK broadcasters: ITV committed itself to regular seasons of children's plays with Dramarama (1983-89), a kind of youth version of the venerable BBC Play For Today (1970-84), which saw the 1988 television debut of one David Tennant. The BBC, building upon an impressive body of work from the early 70s onwards, produced some of its very best family drama in this era, embracing cutting edge technology to bring treats like The Box Of Delights (1984) and The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe (1988) to the screen.
Did fantasy dramas Chocky, The Box Of Delights and Dramarama leave an impression on you as a kid? Revisit those nightmares here...
Spooky, always magical and occasionally downright scary dramas are the bedrock of kids' television. For me, the pinnacle of this sort of programme was reached in the 1980s. The decade saw a new approach to both traditional and contemporary drama by both UK broadcasters: ITV committed itself to regular seasons of children's plays with Dramarama (1983-89), a kind of youth version of the venerable BBC Play For Today (1970-84), which saw the 1988 television debut of one David Tennant. The BBC, building upon an impressive body of work from the early 70s onwards, produced some of its very best family drama in this era, embracing cutting edge technology to bring treats like The Box Of Delights (1984) and The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe (1988) to the screen.
- 8/15/2016
- Den of Geek
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A heads-up for sci-fi fans. BBC Radio 4’s Dangerous Visions season is back for 3 weeks, starting this Sunday the 22nd of May…
Since Buck Rogers hit the airwaves in 1930s America and Orson Welles put the willies up listeners with his chill retelling of The War Of The Worlds, radio has long been a friend to science-fiction.
Happily, BBC Radio 4 continues that fine tradition with a new season of sci-fi programming over the next few weeks, including new commissions as well as dramatisations and readings of work by Aldous Huxley, John Wyndham and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Dangerous Visions, so named for the celebrated 1960s Harlan Ellison-edited sci-fi anthology, returns on Sunday the 22nd of May with Huxley’s Brave New World, with Anton Lesser. Then it’s an invasion classic with a dramatisation of Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes featuring Tamsin Grieg, with versions of William Morris' News From Nowhere,...
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A heads-up for sci-fi fans. BBC Radio 4’s Dangerous Visions season is back for 3 weeks, starting this Sunday the 22nd of May…
Since Buck Rogers hit the airwaves in 1930s America and Orson Welles put the willies up listeners with his chill retelling of The War Of The Worlds, radio has long been a friend to science-fiction.
Happily, BBC Radio 4 continues that fine tradition with a new season of sci-fi programming over the next few weeks, including new commissions as well as dramatisations and readings of work by Aldous Huxley, John Wyndham and Kazuo Ishiguro.
Dangerous Visions, so named for the celebrated 1960s Harlan Ellison-edited sci-fi anthology, returns on Sunday the 22nd of May with Huxley’s Brave New World, with Anton Lesser. Then it’s an invasion classic with a dramatisation of Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes featuring Tamsin Grieg, with versions of William Morris' News From Nowhere,...
- 5/18/2016
- Den of Geek
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Here are 9 of the best 60s British sci-fi novels, featuring thrillers, alternative histories, apocalyptic tales and more...
Read our celebration of 8 amazing British sci-fi novels, here.
Arthur C Clarke once wrote: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
British science fiction of the 1960s gave readers both versions of that terror in novels set on Earth or in far away universes. For those writing about Earth, our own humanity was up for questioning like never before; are we on the path to our own destruction, or do we hold the key to our own salvation? For the novelists who threw all earthly troubles away and created entire universes in mind-boggling detail, they were still reflecting on the problems everyone faced back home: a generation who wanted freedom like never before, faith being shaken in the government, and big shifts in societal attitudes all contributed to an era where many talented writers felt they could best comment through the genre of science fiction.
Here's a look at ten novels that give a flavour of what an varied time it was in science fiction writing, with some authors remaining in the 'pulp' feel of earlier times to create fresh space adventures, and others beginning to experiment with form and literary devices to take Sf in an unexpected, and highly influential, direction...
The Drowned World - Jg Ballard (1962)
Ballard brought something very different to science fiction with his style of detached, literary writing which is cold and intelligent and uncomfortable. You may not like his characters but his visions of the future draw you in and stay in your mind. They feel as if they have a truth about them.
The Drowned World is the story of Dr Robert Kerans, a biologist who has been sent to work in the submerged remains of what was once a great city. But water has covered most of the world due to climate change, and although the tower blocks still rise above the lagoons this is a place that belongs to the insects, the lizards, and no longer to humanity. A strange lethargy, born of the heat, infects Kerans and his co-workers, giving them troubling dreams. It infuses the book, too, and makes this a vivid, sensual and disturbing novel.
Transit - Edmund Cooper (1964)
Our hero Richard Avery finds a glowing crystal in a park, and upon touching it is whisked away to some unknown location where he finds himself becoming the subject of experimentation. Placed upon a desert island with two women and one other man, he has to find a way to survive whatever nature, and his captors, throw at him. Thank goodness they are provided with cigarettes, booze and pornography, or else the whole thing would be unbearable.
Out of all the books on this list, this one feels most like a product of its time to me. It's like Kurt Vonnegut wrote an episode of The Prisoner - a page-turning survival story that's part wish-fulfilment, part social experiment, and it entertains brilliantly, never flagging, and never demanding that we take it too seriously.
A Wrinkle In The Skin - John Christopher (1962)
The title of the novel comes from a moment early on when chat at a dinner party turns to the subject of recent earthquakes - "One or two wrinkles in the skin of an orange - the orange very big and the wrinkles very small," says one character, dismissively, while enjoying the benefits of civilised society. But it turns out that the wrinkles aren't so small after all.
John Christopher was great at turning mundane moments into chilling ones, and there is a brilliant description of the stillness that pervades before the big earthquake hits. But afterwards Guernsey - the home of horticulturalist Matthew Cotter - is no longer a safe haven of polite people and fine dining. The survivors become desperate, and the story turns into a journey through an unrecognisable landscape that juxtaposes so sharply with that first chapter. It's a bleak read, and a worrying one; would civilization so easily collapse at the first sign of a mere wrinkle?
The Doomsday Men - Kenneth Bulmer (1968)
Carver is a Ridforce agent; he has been trained, using new technology, to enter the mind of murder victims and replay their last memories to the moment of death, revealing the killer. He runs the risk of losing his own thoughts and memories with each case, but Carver is good at his job, and the department trusts in his ability to find the truth. Until he enters the mind of a victim and finds a troubling memory - why is Carver's own teenage daughter, ensconced miles away in an expensive boarding school, present as a high-class prostitute in the victim's memories?
A police procedural sci-fi thriller, The Doomsday Men reminds me of Mad Men tied with Minority Report. Slick, full of manly attitude, and yet dealing with crimes within the mind in which nothing the protagonist sees can be trusted, it's a slippery fish of a read that ties itself into too neat a bow in the end, perhaps. Still, it's a heck of an adventure, involving a lot of corpses, double bluffs, and even a ticking bomb.
Pavane - Keith Roberts (1968)
Alternative history books are hard to do well, and almost impossible to do with as much delicacy and complexity as Pavane. It starts with one question - what if Elizabeth I had died earlier and the Catholic Church had reasserted its hold on England?
Jump forward a few hundred years and we have a country without electricity, without equal rights, and with a reliance on the steam train that dominates the first section of the novel and makes this feel, initially, like steampunk. But Pavane doesn't stay within one element of this alternative future; it gives us a number of wonderful characters throughout society and interweaves their stories to make an intricate pattern. Cause and effect is a complex business which doesn't always get a lot of consideration in science fiction. I can't think of a book that does it as well as Pavane.
Chocky - John Wyndham (1960)
In 2008 Dreamworks acquired the film rights to Chocky and it's not hard to see why it would appeal; the tale of a boy who has an imaginary friend that perhaps isn't imaginary after all, this is science fiction at its most personal and inclusive, filled with warmth for the situation and the family it describes.
If you're in the mood for a more optimistic read, then either Chocky or The Trouble With Lichen (the only two novels Wyndham wrote in the 1960s) will fit the bill perfectly. They have humour and decency, but they still manage to raise troubling questions about how humans often assume a mastery over the world, and why we struggle to overcome our own preconceptions.
Greybeard - Brian Aldiss (1964)
The worlds of future fictions often belong to the young and Greybeard is a very effective counterpoint - imagining a time when humanity ceases to reproduce after a spike in radiation, and there will be no more children to inherit the Earth. Instead there's only Greybeard and others like him, elderly men and women in a society reverting to feudalism and superstition as they die out.
The non-linear story documents Greybeard's life, revealing factions and forces that created this last generation. It's a reading experience of far more light, humour and beauty than this subject matter would suggest. It also reaches some really interesting conclusions about humanity. A world without children is not a new theme; a number of books tackle the same ground, but Greybeard is, I think, the most surprising and insightful of the lot.
The Hieros Gamos Of Sam And An Smith - Josephine Saxton (1969)
A boy walks through a strange land, perhaps a post-apocalyptic one, and yet it holds no threat for him. There are no wild animals, no radiation, and when he hears a baby crying in the wilderness he has no fear of approaching. The mother is dead, moments after giving birth, and the boy takes the baby girl, and begins to provide for her with no great sense of importance. The book follows the boy as he raises the girl, and we find ourselves examining the nature of life, of sex, of childhood and parenthood, afresh.
A short and marvellous book, I really can't think of anything else quite like it. It proves that science fiction is a brilliant genre for examining deep psychological issues precisely because it can be free from the demands of realism. Also, the ending is my favourite of all the books on this list.
A Fall Of Moondust - Arthur C Clarke (1961)
Hms Selene cruises the Sea of Thirst, a vast bowl of powdery dust on the moon. The trip offers a thrill to those who are tired of exploring Earth and can afford the ticket price, but these travellers get more than they bargained for when the Selene is stranded deep within the dust. Can rescuers reach them?
A race against time, it would have been easy to make A Fall Of Moondust into a claustrophobic, if predictable, tale of human interplay between the trapped tourists. But what I love is that Clarke doesn't do that. The poor victims play cards and form book clubs and provide the light relief at times, because this is a very serious exploration of how space tourism might look and what technological problems might await us on the moon. Published eight years before man set foot on a lunar landscape and found it wouldn't swallow us up in dust, this book is a good reminder of how visionary science fiction could be when dealing with unknowns, and of how far our understanding has come since then.
See related 8 amazing British sci-fi novels of the 1950s 15 scary novels to give you the creeps 10 strange novels of the British countryside 15 underappreciated books: sci-fi, fantasy, horror fiction 13 geeky beach read recommendations Books & Comics Feature Aliya Whiteley 1960s Sci-Fi novels 13 Jun 2016 - 06:00 A Fall Of Moondust Dune Transit The Drowned World The Doomsday Men A Wrinkle In The Skin Chocky Greybeard Pavane The Hieros Gamos Of Sam And An Smith...
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Here are 9 of the best 60s British sci-fi novels, featuring thrillers, alternative histories, apocalyptic tales and more...
Read our celebration of 8 amazing British sci-fi novels, here.
Arthur C Clarke once wrote: "Two possibilities exist: either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying."
British science fiction of the 1960s gave readers both versions of that terror in novels set on Earth or in far away universes. For those writing about Earth, our own humanity was up for questioning like never before; are we on the path to our own destruction, or do we hold the key to our own salvation? For the novelists who threw all earthly troubles away and created entire universes in mind-boggling detail, they were still reflecting on the problems everyone faced back home: a generation who wanted freedom like never before, faith being shaken in the government, and big shifts in societal attitudes all contributed to an era where many talented writers felt they could best comment through the genre of science fiction.
Here's a look at ten novels that give a flavour of what an varied time it was in science fiction writing, with some authors remaining in the 'pulp' feel of earlier times to create fresh space adventures, and others beginning to experiment with form and literary devices to take Sf in an unexpected, and highly influential, direction...
The Drowned World - Jg Ballard (1962)
Ballard brought something very different to science fiction with his style of detached, literary writing which is cold and intelligent and uncomfortable. You may not like his characters but his visions of the future draw you in and stay in your mind. They feel as if they have a truth about them.
The Drowned World is the story of Dr Robert Kerans, a biologist who has been sent to work in the submerged remains of what was once a great city. But water has covered most of the world due to climate change, and although the tower blocks still rise above the lagoons this is a place that belongs to the insects, the lizards, and no longer to humanity. A strange lethargy, born of the heat, infects Kerans and his co-workers, giving them troubling dreams. It infuses the book, too, and makes this a vivid, sensual and disturbing novel.
Transit - Edmund Cooper (1964)
Our hero Richard Avery finds a glowing crystal in a park, and upon touching it is whisked away to some unknown location where he finds himself becoming the subject of experimentation. Placed upon a desert island with two women and one other man, he has to find a way to survive whatever nature, and his captors, throw at him. Thank goodness they are provided with cigarettes, booze and pornography, or else the whole thing would be unbearable.
Out of all the books on this list, this one feels most like a product of its time to me. It's like Kurt Vonnegut wrote an episode of The Prisoner - a page-turning survival story that's part wish-fulfilment, part social experiment, and it entertains brilliantly, never flagging, and never demanding that we take it too seriously.
A Wrinkle In The Skin - John Christopher (1962)
The title of the novel comes from a moment early on when chat at a dinner party turns to the subject of recent earthquakes - "One or two wrinkles in the skin of an orange - the orange very big and the wrinkles very small," says one character, dismissively, while enjoying the benefits of civilised society. But it turns out that the wrinkles aren't so small after all.
John Christopher was great at turning mundane moments into chilling ones, and there is a brilliant description of the stillness that pervades before the big earthquake hits. But afterwards Guernsey - the home of horticulturalist Matthew Cotter - is no longer a safe haven of polite people and fine dining. The survivors become desperate, and the story turns into a journey through an unrecognisable landscape that juxtaposes so sharply with that first chapter. It's a bleak read, and a worrying one; would civilization so easily collapse at the first sign of a mere wrinkle?
The Doomsday Men - Kenneth Bulmer (1968)
Carver is a Ridforce agent; he has been trained, using new technology, to enter the mind of murder victims and replay their last memories to the moment of death, revealing the killer. He runs the risk of losing his own thoughts and memories with each case, but Carver is good at his job, and the department trusts in his ability to find the truth. Until he enters the mind of a victim and finds a troubling memory - why is Carver's own teenage daughter, ensconced miles away in an expensive boarding school, present as a high-class prostitute in the victim's memories?
A police procedural sci-fi thriller, The Doomsday Men reminds me of Mad Men tied with Minority Report. Slick, full of manly attitude, and yet dealing with crimes within the mind in which nothing the protagonist sees can be trusted, it's a slippery fish of a read that ties itself into too neat a bow in the end, perhaps. Still, it's a heck of an adventure, involving a lot of corpses, double bluffs, and even a ticking bomb.
Pavane - Keith Roberts (1968)
Alternative history books are hard to do well, and almost impossible to do with as much delicacy and complexity as Pavane. It starts with one question - what if Elizabeth I had died earlier and the Catholic Church had reasserted its hold on England?
Jump forward a few hundred years and we have a country without electricity, without equal rights, and with a reliance on the steam train that dominates the first section of the novel and makes this feel, initially, like steampunk. But Pavane doesn't stay within one element of this alternative future; it gives us a number of wonderful characters throughout society and interweaves their stories to make an intricate pattern. Cause and effect is a complex business which doesn't always get a lot of consideration in science fiction. I can't think of a book that does it as well as Pavane.
Chocky - John Wyndham (1960)
In 2008 Dreamworks acquired the film rights to Chocky and it's not hard to see why it would appeal; the tale of a boy who has an imaginary friend that perhaps isn't imaginary after all, this is science fiction at its most personal and inclusive, filled with warmth for the situation and the family it describes.
If you're in the mood for a more optimistic read, then either Chocky or The Trouble With Lichen (the only two novels Wyndham wrote in the 1960s) will fit the bill perfectly. They have humour and decency, but they still manage to raise troubling questions about how humans often assume a mastery over the world, and why we struggle to overcome our own preconceptions.
Greybeard - Brian Aldiss (1964)
The worlds of future fictions often belong to the young and Greybeard is a very effective counterpoint - imagining a time when humanity ceases to reproduce after a spike in radiation, and there will be no more children to inherit the Earth. Instead there's only Greybeard and others like him, elderly men and women in a society reverting to feudalism and superstition as they die out.
The non-linear story documents Greybeard's life, revealing factions and forces that created this last generation. It's a reading experience of far more light, humour and beauty than this subject matter would suggest. It also reaches some really interesting conclusions about humanity. A world without children is not a new theme; a number of books tackle the same ground, but Greybeard is, I think, the most surprising and insightful of the lot.
The Hieros Gamos Of Sam And An Smith - Josephine Saxton (1969)
A boy walks through a strange land, perhaps a post-apocalyptic one, and yet it holds no threat for him. There are no wild animals, no radiation, and when he hears a baby crying in the wilderness he has no fear of approaching. The mother is dead, moments after giving birth, and the boy takes the baby girl, and begins to provide for her with no great sense of importance. The book follows the boy as he raises the girl, and we find ourselves examining the nature of life, of sex, of childhood and parenthood, afresh.
A short and marvellous book, I really can't think of anything else quite like it. It proves that science fiction is a brilliant genre for examining deep psychological issues precisely because it can be free from the demands of realism. Also, the ending is my favourite of all the books on this list.
A Fall Of Moondust - Arthur C Clarke (1961)
Hms Selene cruises the Sea of Thirst, a vast bowl of powdery dust on the moon. The trip offers a thrill to those who are tired of exploring Earth and can afford the ticket price, but these travellers get more than they bargained for when the Selene is stranded deep within the dust. Can rescuers reach them?
A race against time, it would have been easy to make A Fall Of Moondust into a claustrophobic, if predictable, tale of human interplay between the trapped tourists. But what I love is that Clarke doesn't do that. The poor victims play cards and form book clubs and provide the light relief at times, because this is a very serious exploration of how space tourism might look and what technological problems might await us on the moon. Published eight years before man set foot on a lunar landscape and found it wouldn't swallow us up in dust, this book is a good reminder of how visionary science fiction could be when dealing with unknowns, and of how far our understanding has come since then.
See related 8 amazing British sci-fi novels of the 1950s 15 scary novels to give you the creeps 10 strange novels of the British countryside 15 underappreciated books: sci-fi, fantasy, horror fiction 13 geeky beach read recommendations Books & Comics Feature Aliya Whiteley 1960s Sci-Fi novels 13 Jun 2016 - 06:00 A Fall Of Moondust Dune Transit The Drowned World The Doomsday Men A Wrinkle In The Skin Chocky Greybeard Pavane The Hieros Gamos Of Sam And An Smith...
- 5/16/2016
- Den of Geek
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From Brian Aldiss to Arthur C Clarke, 1950s Britain was rich in fantastic science-fiction novels. Here are 8 of the best...
It seems that every few years somebody announces science fiction is dead. In 2007 it was the turn of Ridley Scott, who then went on to make The Martian, so perhaps these claims should always be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly when we look back over the history of Sf writing over the years and find that it is a genre that is as much defined by current events than by any singular vision of the future.
For that reason, British science fiction in the 1950s was incredible stuff. Anxiety over the powers scientists had unleashed after the dropping the atomic bomb at the end of World War II obsessed many novelists, but so did a sense of despondency at poverty and suffering within a community...
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From Brian Aldiss to Arthur C Clarke, 1950s Britain was rich in fantastic science-fiction novels. Here are 8 of the best...
It seems that every few years somebody announces science fiction is dead. In 2007 it was the turn of Ridley Scott, who then went on to make The Martian, so perhaps these claims should always be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly when we look back over the history of Sf writing over the years and find that it is a genre that is as much defined by current events than by any singular vision of the future.
For that reason, British science fiction in the 1950s was incredible stuff. Anxiety over the powers scientists had unleashed after the dropping the atomic bomb at the end of World War II obsessed many novelists, but so did a sense of despondency at poverty and suffering within a community...
- 4/11/2016
- Den of Geek
Presenting murderous moppets on screen is always a dicey proposition. For every The Bad Seed or The Omen, there is always The Good Son or Mikey skulking about. It’s all about the fear – making a five or ten year old believably frightening is hard to do. As audience members, we put our faith in filmmakers to produce tension, conflict, and danger in a palpable (but not necessarily plausible) way, and when it’s tested we end up wading through Children of the Corn. But when our faith is rewarded, we find ourselves in the Village of the Damned (1960), a seminal killer kid chiller.
Based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, Village was produced by MGM’s British division and distributed there in July, with a December rollout in the States. The film was a great success, both with critics and audiences alike, luring them in with...
Based on the novel The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham, Village was produced by MGM’s British division and distributed there in July, with a December rollout in the States. The film was a great success, both with critics and audiences alike, luring them in with...
- 3/19/2016
- by Scott Drebit
- DailyDead
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