"Indiana Jones. I Always Knew Some Day You'd Come Walking Back Through My Door"

These belong in a museum

It seems fitting that on Karen Allen's birthday, we celebrate the arrival of a brace of gorgeous hardback collections of Marvel's Further Adventures of Indiana Jones comic books from the 1980s.

Each sporting faux leather covers and a stitched in red silk bookmark, both these arcane tomes are going to look majestic on a book shelf with my other Indiana Jones books acquired through the years.

Volume one contains adaptations of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, plus issues one to 16 of the Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, while volume two includes issues 17 to 34 of the Further Adventures of Indiana Jones series and the four-issue miniseries adaptation of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

The main series was first published between 1982 and 1985, with five of the story arcs also serving as the basis for adventures in the much-maligned Indiana Jones roleplaying game from TSR.

I can't recall just how many of the original run I read back in the day, although I'm sure quite a few were also reprinted in a British Indiana Jones magazine if my memory serves me right.

So, I'm looking forward to being able to follow the full 34 issues of Indy's adventures here, in time for his next Marvel tale to launch this December. Hopefully, Marvel will also eventually be able to reprint his various miniseries runs from Dark Horse Comics in a similar stylish form.

You can read more about this pair of 500-plus page Further Adventures of Indiana Jones collections in an earlier article here.

The Twilight Sword is Drawn and Monsters Arise!

 

With the core Twilight Sword books winging their way to backers as you read this, publisher Two Little Mice has announced a new crowdfunding campaign for its anime/video game-inspired tabletop roleplaying game.

Next month, on November 17, a campaign to fund the Monster Book will launch on Backerkit.

As well as a new playable Kin (species) and a new Way (character class), this new book will contain:

"...dreadful Monsters, friendly Beasts, and unique Loot!"

November 17 is, of course, an auspicious day for this blog: not only is it Life Day in the Star Wars Universe, but it is also the official anniversary of the current iteration of my blogging efforts "going live". 

I, therefore, take this as a sign that I need to back this campaign!

Is It Legal To Shoot A Ghost?

In 1803, London’s Hammersmith Ghost sparked terror — and a deadly case of mistaken identity. When Francis Smith shot Thomas Millwood, believing him to be a ghost, he was convicted of murder. The bizarre trial shaped British criminal law for centuries. But who, or what, was the Hammersmith Ghost?

Hawk The Slayer (1980)

Four essential movies shaped my early Dungeons & Dragons games: namely Jason & The Argonauts from 1963; Sinbad And The Eye of The Tiger (which I saw at the cinema with my parents when it came out in 1977); Ralph Bakshi's 1978 animated (and unfinished) Lord Of The Rings; and the legendary Hawk The Slayer (from 1980).

As with my commentary on The Messenger the other week, all these movies are review-proof in my eyes, and so this isn't going to be a critical hatchet job - instead, it will read more like a hagiography. 

Sinbad And The Eye Of The Tiger, being the first Dungeons & Dragons-y film I saw after discovering the game, was a major source of material.

One of my first characters was actually called 'Sinbad' and most of the ship's crew and other supporting characters from the film appeared as non-player characters at some time or other in my games.

It was also this film which inspired the epic trans-oceanic adventures that young Gublin and I mapped out on seemingly never-ending rolls of paper, making up the islands and continents as our characters' ship discovered them.

As I've already said several times on this blog, it was Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion animation in Jason & The Argonauts (and later in Clash Of The Titans) that really decided the 'look' of Dungeons & Dragons monster fighting (in my mind) for me.

But it was Hawk The Slayer that had the closest overall feel of pure Dungeons & Dragons as we actually played it, even with its micro-budget and B-movie mentality.

As much as I love the movie, I find it difficult to compare to those other three formative cinematic influences - as, to me, they are all perfect.

However, it's easy to see why Hawk The Slayer, in particular, holds a certain cachet with old school gamers.

It has everything a classic game of Dungeons & Dragons requires! The party's charismatic leader Hawk (John Terry who also happens to play Jack's dad in Lost which just adds to the geek cred of the film) has a magic sword and a feud with his one-eyed Darth Vader-like brother Voltan (Jack Palance).

He takes a mission to raise the 2,000 gold pieces needed to ransom an abbess (Victor Meldrew's wife, Annette Crosbie) back from Voltan.

To aid him, Hawk teams up with adventuring friends old and new including a giant (who is basically just the tall bloke from the Carry On films, Bernard Bresslaw), the coolest elf in cinema history (Crow - Ray Charleson - could whoop Legolas any day of the week with his superspeed archery), a dwarf, a one-handed fighter with a machine-gun crossbow and a magic-user called, simply, "Woman" (whose spells strongly resemble smoke, snow and wind machines, luminous ping-pong balls, silly string and assorted 70s disco lighting effects).

Set this all in a land permanently enshrouded in fog, with a funky synth music score and spaghetti western whistly bits; enough name dropping to give the impression of a full-developed country; and more than enough chewy, cheesy dialogue to satiate the diet of both a giant and a dwarf and you've got a "realistic" depiction of 99 per cent of how I viewed every fantasy roleplaying game I played back in the day.

If it isn't already compulsory for those about to start an old school Dungeons & Dragons campaign to watch this film... it should be!

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Terminus Turkey For Christmas

My most unexpected Christmas present in 2020 a DVD (and VHS tape) of Terminus, an obscure Karen Allen film I'd been hunting for.

Knowing I was on the lookout for this B-movie from 1987, my best mate Paul had scanned the world for a VHS tape of the film and then he, with an assist from Rachel, had had it transferred to DVD for my enjoyment.

While my expectations for the movie were tempered by the obvious "80s-ness" of its Mad Max-style narrative, I was still excited by the prospect of viewing a genre movie starring my first - and most enduring - celebrity crush.

Imagine you were a massive Janet Leigh fan in the 1960s and you'd heard of her new film, Psycho...

That's exactly the bait-and-switch that Terminus pulls. Spoilers for a three decades old B-movie, but Karen's character, Gus, gets killed off at the end of the first act.

But there's nothing Hitchcockian about Terminus, and, anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Picture an ill-defined, possibly post-apocalyptic 2037. America seems to have been divided up into different countries or something, but, anyway, there's this new "game" that features a truck driver being deposited in a random location and then having to take their rig west to "the end of the line"... for reasons.

Gus (Karen Allen) is driving one such big rig, but is being assisted by a freaky computer system that communicates through a disturbing interface that manifests as a rubbery human mouth operated by metallic rods.

Surely only a masochistic pervert would design a computer interface like this? Not a child...

This computer, Monster, was programmed by a child genius, Mati (Gabriel Damon), as a way to prove his worth to some super-shady subterranean scientists, fronted by The Doctor (Jürgen Prochnow, of In The Mouth of Madness, the truest Lovecraftian horror yet committed to celluloid).

There's a whole sub-plot/theme about cloning here with The Doctor as well as one of the major henchvillains, The Driver of The Yellow Truck, being clones of the "unseen" big boss, Sir.

As an aside, the Yellow Truck can turn itself invisible... but that major scientific breakthrough gains no traction in the story.

Mati the boy genius is a clone as well. Is he meant to be a young Jürgen Prochnow? I like to think so, but who knows.

Anyway Gus, being chased by government forces (aka Greys) and having crashed her way through an innocent civilian village en route, ends up captured by some rando thugs and thrown into prison with one-handed tough guy Stump (Johnny Hallyday). 

They fall in love. Naturally. 

Gus gets taken away by these minor league baddies and tortured, but not really tortured. She dies anyway, having bequeathed her truck to Stump (who she'd met the night before).

Stump - having nothing better to do - then opts to finish "the game", with escaped slave, Princess (Julie Glenn), as his co-pilot. This little girl, co-incidentally, is Mati's "sister" and another clone.

Terminus is so 1980's sci-fi it hurts. A mess of dreadful dialogue, lurching from cliché to just plain nonsense, brutal editing that makes events just happen rather than adeptly segueing into them, and creaky special effects make this a drinking game waiting to happen.

Superficially, it's trying to remake 1981's Mad Max II: The Road Warrior with the resources of Mad Max.

A jumble of seemingly undeveloped plot threads woven through with some vehicle stunts and half-hearted fight scenes make a hilariously bad - but nonetheless enjoyable in its awfulness - movie.

And it all builds up to a Deathstalker-style climax where Sir declares he is escaping to somewhere no one can touch him and promptly explodes for no readily explainable reason.

Don't get me wrong, I'm delighted that I got to see Terminus.

There are certainly elements of this 85-minute French-German co-production that could have elevated it above its trashy period peers: such as the whole cloning sub-plot that, as is, is just colour but could have gone in interesting directions.

I also, kind of, reluctantly, admire the bait-and-switch with Gus. As limply as it is executed.

But conversely, it's also rather insulting that even more open-minded European filmmakers didn't believe audiences could handle a post-Raiders of The Lost Ark Karen Allen as the action lead of a sci-fi movie.

What we see of Gus - right up until she, bizarrely, steps out of her truck to face the army of hoodlums who bar the road to her - is really spunky and engaging.

More so, I would say, than uncharismatic French rock-and-roller Johnny Hallyday, sporting a Billy Idol hairdo and possibly some ill-defined cinematic PTSD. 

By no definition of the term could Terminus be considered a good film, but I'm still deliriously happy to have it now in my collection.

Primarily for the Karen Allen-ness of it (all be it rather truncated), but also because it's so totally bonkers (some of which can be attributed to its translation into English, no doubt) that it will stay with me way longer than a lot of the current cookie cutter Hollywood fare that gets churned out.

Among all its randomness, it's also worth noting that Terminus boasts a theme tune by none other than the legendary Stan Ridgway (of Camouflage fame), which was a nice surprise.

My Christmas present from Paul

The Colosseum Was A State Propaganda Machine

Photo by Ceyda Çiftci

In this video, geek architect Dami Lee deconstructs the Colosseum of Ancient Rome, explaining how it operated as a propaganda engine to keep the the city's population distracted from the real issues.

And, yes, she concludes with comparisons to today's mass media...

THERE CAN BE ONLY FOUR (ISSUES)

Issue one variant cover art by Brian Bysouth

Previously announced as a single graphic novel, Titan Comics adaptation of Gregory Widen’s original script for 1986's iconic Highlander will now, first, be released as a four-part comic book miniseries, debuting in December.

The adaptation is being written by Widen himself, with Szymon Kudranski on art duty.

A collected edition of Highlander: The Original Screenplay is now scheduled to follow in July.

Issue one variant cover art by Lee Binding

Issue one variant cover art by Szymon Kudranski 

Issue one variant cover art by Claudia Gironi

Arachnophobes Beware! Crawlers Is Not For You!

If spiders decide to eat humans... we'll all be dead in 1 year.

Crawlers is a wild and terrifying thrill ride from the makers of the John Wick franchise. An apartment block in Los Angeles is plunged into lockdown after a catastrophic infestation of venomous and deadly arachnids is triggered by a resident unwittingly harbouring an evil new breed. 

As the fanged creatures multiply by the second, it's up to building manager Serena (Matilda Lutz) to guide a band of misfit neighbours through wall-to-wall dread and do battle with the web-spinning colony as well as the fearful authorities trying to contain the eight-legged plague.

Starring Matilda Lutz (Red Sonja), Gregg Sulkin (Marvel's Runaways), Melina Matthews (Sanctuary), William Miller (Warrior Nun), Elena Sanz (Black Mirror), Chris Rogers (The Running Man) and Andrea Scott Méndez (The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon).

Crawlers is written by Jayson Rothwell (Polar) and directed by Angel Gomez Hernandez (El hombre del saco).

While this won't be one for Rachel, I'm loving Crawlers already. It reminds me of those delightfully trashy "when creatures attack" paperbacks of my youth (in the 1970s) that scandalised my school and led to them being "banned"... which only made us want to read them even more.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: The Majesty of Dungeness

Visiting an open studio at Dungeness, out front was their 'grave yard' of old tools

Back in 2018, Rachel and I celebrated our wedding anniversary with a short getaway to the coast, with Alice, staying at the hotel we'd stayed at for my 50th birthday.

On our actual anniversary, we visited Dungeness... and I fell in love. It's now giving Wales a run for its money as my dream retirement venue. And I hope to get back there as part of my 60th birthday celebrations.

An isolated headland, consisting largely of pebble beaches, adjacent to the iconic Dungeness Nuclear Power Stations, there's a Portmeirion-level quirkiness to the homes that dot the area, an idiosyncratic blend of cutting edge architecture, tumble-down Victorian fishing huts and 1930s chalets.

The whole area has an atmospheric cinematic bleakness, reminiscent of the alien gravel pits of classic era Doctor Who or the weird science of Simon Stålenhag’s Tales From The Loop, that encourages eccentricity in its inhabitants.

It must be haunted, right? A totally round house would be interesting to decorate.
Also, note the wild rabbit resting in the grass in front of the wall.

It's no wonder it has a thriving artistic community and was, famously, the home of visionary director and artist Derek Jarman.

There's no phone signal and no wi-fi, even our satnav went a bit bananas as we were trying to find the car park for the railway station - the end of the line of the world-famous Romney Hythe & Dymchurch small railway.

Some people would say that "bleak" was a negative, pejorative, term to use for the area - but I would say that was all part of its stark, soul-shivering charm.

I took a number of photographs, but not many of the actual houses there as I felt awkward about snapping pictures of private property where people were living. And they don't really go in for many fences around their homes, they're just 'there' among the pebble expanse.

If you like places that give you goosebumps because you feel you're walking on a different planet (or, at least, an inventive facsimile of one from a retro sci-fi movie) then Dungeness is a place you need to visit.

You can read more about the geography of the area here at Wikipedia.

Doubling-down on the atmosphere, the area was shrouded in mist when we arrived.

Warcraft - The Beginning (2016)

Continuing my meander through movies based on video games I know little about, the immediate takeaway from Warcraft: The Beginning is that it's a million times better than Assassin's Creed.

Up to this point - barring a very short (we're talking a matter of minutes) and unrewarding stab at trying to play World Of Warcraft online - my primary exposure to the setting was Meredith's eight-part tabletop campaign she ran for the Tuesday Knights back in 2013.

I still came to Warcraft: The Beginning knowing almost nothing about the wider world, but Duncan Jones' movie opened with a tidal wave of world-building, as characters darted from one beautiful location to another and back again during the first act.

There's clearly a mountain of backstory and lore built up over the years that this game has been running, and it's almost overwhelming as the viewer is bombarded by evocative names and locations with whiplash-inducing speed.

At times Warcraft: The Beginning feels as though the film-makers are squeezing 10 hours-worth of intricate storytelling and plot development into a two-hour movie.

The world of the orcs is dying and so their sorcerer supreme Gul'dan (Daniel Wu) uses his powerful necrotic magic known as The Fell (it's kinda like the dark side of The Force) to open a portal to the peaceful world of Azeroth, which he sees as prime real estate for a new orc kingdom.

Among the initial wave of orcs he brings through is the idealistic clan chief Durotan (Toby Kebbell), who quickly realises that the only reason their homeworld was dying is because of Gul'dan's use of The Fell, which is fuelled by life energy.

So Durotan tries to engineer peaceful contact with the ruling human kingdom, ruled by the Preacher partnership of Dominic Cooper (as King Llane Wrynn) and Ruth Negga (as Lady Taria).

Leading the human armies is Lady Taria's brother, Anduin Lothar (Vikings' Travis Fimmel, who is essentially still playing Ragnar Lothbrok, just in better armour), who takes a shine to 'mutant orc' Garona (Paula Patton), after he captures her during an initial spat between the two species.

Although riven with clichés about 'power corrupting' and the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend', the plot of Warcraft: The Beginning is surprisingly engaging.

Once your eyes have adjusted to surfeit of obviously CGI creatures and you accept that this isn't high class fantasy - like Lord Of The Rings or Game Of Thrones - but rather Sunday afternoon B-movie fare like that produced by Arrowstorm or my beloved Ray Harryhausen flicks from back in the day, it's rather an entertaining romp.

The twists and turns of the story veer off into silliness for the climax (which is clearly being contrived to set up sequels that are - sadly - never going to appear), but the fight scenes and depictions of the magical arts are superb.

While most of the plot is quite predictable (and that's not necessarily a bad thing), it makes an 'interesting' and 'brave' narrative choice towards the end to take the story is a surprisingly un-Hollywood direction.

Obviously, I don't know how close Warcraft: The Beginning sticks to the established mythology of the video game, but what we are presented with here works really well.

It's a criminal shame, though, that the other main races of Azeroth - namely the dwarves and elves - are reduced to little more than background extras; it would have been cool to see members of these other races fighting alongside Anduin Lothar.

While Warcraft: The Beginning still hasn't persuaded me to play the online game, it has kindled the desire to see more Warcraft movies (should they ever materialise) and maybe learn a bit more about the world of Azeroth.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: FrightFest 2010

Last weekend was this year's FrightFest horror film festival in London, which reminded me that Paul and I had attended the event back in 2010.

Of our day out and the two films we saw, I wrote the following at the time:

On Monday (August 30, 2010) Paul and I met up in Leicester Square, London, to attend our first FrightFest - having booked tickets for a couple of world premiers, namely Jake West's documentary Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape and the Ford brothers' The Dead, a zombie film set in contemporary Africa.

The atmosphere at FrightFest was incredible, and so friendly, with celebs, directors, critics and sundry other 'faces' just breezing through the crowds of fans and mingling like they were old drinking buddies (which they quite well could have been).

The venue, The Empire Leicester Square, itself - which I hadn't been to since I blagged tickets for Nick and I to attend the premier of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (back when I was a working stiff) - is about as far from "fleapit" as a cinema can get.

Video Nasties: Moral Panic, Censorship and Videotape was a superb documentary; incisive, balanced and very well researched.

It also made a hero of Professor Martin Barker (who was present for a Q&A after the screening with several other luminaries) to everyone in the auditorium, and no doubt anyone who sees this documentary.

He was the one man brave enough to challenge the right-wing Thatcher government of the 1980's on the fraudulent statistics it was using to drive its draconian censorship measures through parliament - on a tidal wave of Daily Mail-fuelled ignorance and bile.

The film is packed full of fascinating gems such as the figures of authority unable to distinguish between reality and fiction and self-appointed moral campaigner Mary Whitehouse's nonsensical assertions that she didn't need to see films to know whether they should be banned or not.

Then there was the incredible double-standards of certain bodies (e.g. senior police officers, politicians etc) that declared while they were able to watch these films without being corrupted others (by which they usually meant "the lower classes") shouldn't be exposed to this as it would lead to the collapse of British society.

Or the case that when children were interviewed about whether they had actually seen any of these so-called 'video nasties' they were claiming to have seen films that didn't even exist!

Much was made of the lurid publicity that the small video companies used to promote their wares - almost always far exceeding the actual content of the movie concerned - and the psychological impact of the graininess of video tape that does actually add an air of 'sleazy reality' to whatever is on display.

Certainly Jake West's finest work to date, and with just enough clips from the films under discussion for most discerning viewers to realise the majority were pretty awful anyway and that - surprise, surprise - the moral majority didn't have a leg to stand on.

The Dead, on the other hand, was a major disappointment. A "dead loss", one might say.

Beautifully shot on location in the wilds of Africa, The Dead tells of the only white survivor of the last post-zompocalypse evacuation from the continent, after his plane crashes off the coast.

Rob Freeman is Lt Brian Murphy, a military engineer, who finds himself stranded in the wilderness, constantly dodging the slow, ambling, Romero-style zombies.

Eventually he teams up with Sgt Daniel Dembele (Prince David Ose), an AWOL local soldier trying to find his missing son.

Beyond the road movie/journey premise of the story, The Dead brings nothing new to the genre and every time it looks as though something interesting might happen it gets thrown away in the next scene.

Two howling - spoilerific - examples spring to mind: at one point Lt Murphy is handed a baby by a dying woman and you think: "oh my God, how's he going to cope in a world overrun with zombies, with a newborn to care for as well?" The next scene he's meeting some refugees in a lorry and handing the baby off to them.

Then a little later, Murphy's asleep in a tree (a course of action maybe he should have considered earlier in the film, given what happens to him and Dembele at one point when they make camp) and his gun slips out of his hand to the ground. And there's a zombie walking past! Obviously zombies can't climb trees, but what exciting thing is going to happen?

Cut to next scene, it's morning, the zombie's wandered off long ago and Murphy climbs down and picks up his gun.

The only moment in the film that got any reaction from the audience was, quite early on, when Murphy drives his rusty old car over the head of a zombie causing it to pop like an overripe zit. That was met with much applauding and howls of laughter.

I'm easily satisfied by straight-forward zombie films, I'm not expecting great innovations every time, but The Dead is just dull, with its few shocks well telegraphed ahead of time.

It also suffered from strange jumps in editing that compacted some sequences you thought should have been longer and at other times drew out moments that could have been dismissed in a single beat.

You couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for directors Howard and Jon Ford, who told the audience beforehand how they'd put 20 years into the film and risked life and limb filming in such a dangerous area.

I just can't see this movie attracting even a cult following.

Photo Guide To Military Odyssey

Our favourite living history display of the day

On Bank Holiday Monday, Rachel, Alice and I attended Military Odyssey at the Kent County Showground, as we usually do.

Once again I had the benefit of a hired mobility scooter to get around (often with Alice riding in my lap) but poor Rach put in thousands of steps keeping up with us.

As ever, the show was a magnificent blend of historical periods, from the ancients to modern warfare (although with the ever-present bias towards the Second World War), represented by talented and knowledgeable reenactors, all more than happy to talk about their area of expertise.

In our enthusiasm to get there we'd forgotten that Alice absolutely hates the (near-constant) sound of gunfire at the event, so we've assured her that if we come back next year she can spend the day with Rachel's parents - which she would much prefer.

She was only really settled when we popped into covered café area for dinner, where there was old time music and dancing going on.

Our "small" selection of pictures can't do the event justice, and don't even include the many, many stalls selling militaria, action figures, army surplus, antique swords and guns, books, artwork etc

ANCIENTS

JAPANESE DRUMMING & WEAPONS

ALL-IMPORTANT ICE CREAM BREAK

LUNCHBREAK

Sadly, the only time of the day when Alice wasn't stressing out 

OUR FAVOURITE DISPLAY

The display by Hell-and-Back was so impressive, a Second World War medical unit had taken over a crumbling, derelict building. The delightful man - who could have stepped out of the pages of a vintage war comic - that we spoke to, for ages, explained how it was all assembled from flatpack and scavenged items. And we talked about dogs (of course).

OTHER WORLD WAR II DISPLAYS

EMOTIONAL SUPPORT GEESE

Because why wouldn't you? 

Rachel says I can't have an emotional support goose

MISCELLANEOUS

Alice was confused by the tiny people in tanks

THE OLD WEST

PURCHASES

Three sale purchases covering a good spectrum of my interests