"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.

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

Seth Skorkowsky Reviews OUTGUNNED Adventure

Well-known and respected RPG YouTuber Seth Skorkowsky has reviewed OUTGUNNED Adventure, from Two Little Mice, the pulp-emulating system the Tuesday Knights are currently using in Pete's ongoing "weird science" campaign.

In his well-argued, half-hour piece, Seth gives a succinct summary of the game's ambitions, its style, and its mechanics, highlighting what works and what doesn't for his group. 

Warriors Of Heaven And Earth (2003)

Warriors of Heaven And Earth (or Tian Di Ying Xiong) is an Eighth Century Chinese adventure story with traces of The Seven Samurai, Zulu and even Raiders Of The Lost Ark.

Nakai Kiichi plays Lai Xi, a Japanese samurai sent to the Tang court at the age of 13 who now serves the Chinese Emperor as a special agent, even though - after 25 years - he craves to see Japan and his family again.

He has been dispatched to the west of the country to hunt down criminals, on the understanding that when they are all rounded up he may go home.

Ten years later he is assigned the task of tracking and killing Lieutenant "Butcher" Li (Jiang Wen), as well as escorting the gorgeous Wen Zhu (Wei Zhao) back to the capitol.

Li, however, isn't the great villain he has been made out to be and is actually wanted because he stirred up a mutiny when he defied orders to butcher captured women and children. He now makes a living protecting caravans through the desert.

Xi and Li come to an understanding that they will work together to guard a caravan transporting a young Buddhist monk and some holy scriptures to the capitol before Xi can try and claim Li's head.

The monk's treasure - which is secretly something more valuable than simple scriptures - is being sought by a bang of Turkish bandits led by the sinister Master An (Xueqi Wang), who is in league with warlord who has his eye on the secret treasure as well.

Xi, Li and Li's small cadre of old army colleagues fight a running battle across the desert against An's bandits in a variety of locations before the final stand comes in a rundown fort on the far side of the Gobi desert.

Warriors Of Heaven And Earth is an odd fish, but is not poorer for its strange identity crisis. For the most part it is a straight-forward, sword and sand adventure yarn, with the usual acrobatic and inventive fight scenes we expect from Eastern action movies (although resisting excessive wirework to keep it in the historical rather than fantastical camp).

But then at the movie's mid-point there is a scene of stunning magical effects, when the "secret treasure" the caravan has been transporting is revealed, that is not visited again until the bloody, Wild Bunch-like finale (which, I'll be the first to admit did not go the way I was expecting).

I would have been perfectly happy if Warriors Of Heaven And Earth had turned out to be a straight-forward actioner, but the couple of leftfield twists writer/director Ping He throws in spin the film into the realm of unexpected, cryptic, wackiness that make wuxia films so enjoyable.

Outside of the craziness, the character work is fantastic as well, with the interactions between the various tough, rugged soldiers protecting the caravan - all with different wants and loyalties - being an object lesson in smart writing.

Warriors Of Heaven And Earth took me by surprise. I had seen the name listed for years but ignored it out of ignorance because I thought it sounded like some tacky video game.

In the end it turned out to far exceed my limited expectations of a simple exhibition of slick swordplay and masterful martial arts, by slipping in a well-penned script full of strong characters and a couple of totally off-the-wall twists.

When A Problem Comes Along, You Must Whip It

Whether you're picking up the gorgeous-looking omnibuses of the vintage Further Adventures of Indiana Jones or not or a fan who regrets selling off his run of issues back in the day, Marvel has another surprise for old school fans of the world's most famous archaeologist.

In November - just in time for my birthday, by the way - the House of Ideas is releasing a facsimile edition of the very first issue of The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones, from 1983.

Written by John Byrne, with art by Byrne and Terry Austin (who also provided the cover art), the plot of this debut issue also served as the plot of the introductory adventure in the ill-fated 1984 Indiana Jones roleplaying game from TSR.

When celebrated college professor Indiana Jones is visited by former star student Charlie Dunne, bringing news of an amazing discovery, unexpected tragedy strikes — and that means it’s time for Indy to grab his trademark hat and whip!

Heading off to Africa, he joins Dunne’s sister, Edith, on a search for the golden Ikons of Ikammanen - but it won’t be long before they’re in a battle for survival!

It’s everything you’d want from an Indy adventure - boldly re-presented in its original form, ads and all!

Happy 136th Birthday, HP Lovecraft!!!

On the 136st anniversary of the birth of masterful cosmic horror fiction writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft, it should come as no surprise for me to tell you that, as ever, my mind has been wandering Mythos-ward.

From the moment I discovered the writing of Lovecraft - just before the first edition of Call of Cthulhu made its way to our shores - I've been inspired by his genre-defining and game-changing take on horror and mythology.

Over the decades I've been a dabbler in books associated with Lovecraftian horror, as well as the history of the 1920s (and the more Indiana Jones spin on the 1930s), and while books have come and gone from my collection, I still retain a fair few - and continue to add to my Lovecraftian library as well.

Lovecraftian horror has touched everything from my taste in movies, the periods of history I dig into to, right up to my world-building for roleplaying games, and yet I've never really explored the game so intimately connected with his writings.

Until the other year, I'd only actually played two, brief, sessions of Chaosium's evergreen Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.

But then, in mid-2024, when I flunked out of running some game or other for the Tuesday Knights, Mark stepped in with He Who Must Not Be Named, a self-penned Call of Cthulhu scenario.

And, boy, was it enjoyably scary! Real, getting-under-your-skin, rural horror fun and festivities.

In the game's aftermath, I was inspired to once again browse my ever-growing Call of Cthulhu and Lovecraft library.

While I could never see myself running Call of Cthulhu per se, especially in the shadow of Mark's incredible little campaign, I am determined to still have the Mythos represented in whatever game I do end up running for our group. It is a core part of my being after all.

The First Rule of Monopoly Club Is...

Le Mans-themed Monopoly

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host a (supposedly) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is an insatiable collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the three-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Looney Tunes to Stranger Things, Indiana Jones to The Simpsons, and Ghostbusters to Jaws.

This week we were playing on a Le Mans-themed board that Pete had purchased earlier this year at the actual Le Mans endurance racing event in France.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories (and defeats) but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit this blog's little sister site: Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

You Wait All Day For An Omnibus, Then Three Come Along

As we were talking about Afterlife With Archie the other day, it's worth pointing out that just in time for Halloween this year Oni Press - in collaboration with Archie Comics - is releasing a deluxe hardcover collection of all ten issues of the comic.

R.I.P. Riverdale! Once in a generation, a story so potent, so powerful, so horrifying rises from the grave to redefine the comics medium’s greatest icons.

Enter: The first-ever deluxe collection of Afterlife with Archie — collecting the totality of the groundbreaking, cemetery-shaking comics masterpiece from Harvey Award–winning writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (Stephen King's The Stand: American Nightmare) and Eisner Award–winning artist Francesco Francavilla (Batman: The Black Mirror) that first introduced Riverdale’s teenage icons into a merciless world of ritual magic, undead terror, and survival at any cost!

When a tragic death befalls Jughead Jones’s closest companion, his grief drives him to the doorstep of Sabrina the Teenage Witch... and into the thrall of a dark magic that will soon turn the whole of Riverdale into a ravenous pack of undead zombies fueled by a desire for human flesh.

Hunted by the reanimated corpses of their friends and loved ones, can Archie, Betty, Veronica, and the rest of America's most beloved teenagers battle back by a legion of the dead... and live long enough to stop the entire world from being consumed by the same unholy hunger?

Pal vs. pal. Classmate vs. classmate. Living vs. dead. They swore to be friends until the end... but they never expected the end to look quite like this.

This definitive hardcover collection of the riveting and relentless milestone that the New York Times calls “gruesome [and] masterly” re-presents the entirety of the Afterlife with Archie saga — including the never-before-collected issues #6–10 — in an oversized format that also features a complete cover gallery and behind-the-scenes materials on the development of Archie Comics’ first all-out horror epic.

The Afterlife With Archie Deluxe Edition is scheduled to rise from the grave on October 27.

But that's not all, young adventurers, we also have a two volume collection of Marvel's original run of high-octane, pulp yarns involving the world's most famous archaeologist: Indiana Jones.

Both hardcover volumes are due to be dug up on September 29.

With Raiders being my all-time favourite movie and my enduring crush on Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) also being no secret, you know this pair of eldritch tomes will be finding a way onto my shelves.

Each volume holds over 500 pages of Indy goodness from the '80s, featuring the work of such legends as John Byrne, Walt Simonson, Dennis O'Neill, Christopher Priest, David Michelinie and more.

At the height of the popularity of Indiana Jones in the 1980s, Marvel Comics - and some of the biggest creators of the era - took on the challenge of bringing the iconic hero from the silver screen to the printed page, and the results were every bit as exhilarating as you’d expect!

Now these action-packed adventures are being collected in a pair of volumes destined to be treasures worthy of Indy himself!

Volume one includes adaptations of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, plus the first half of the Further Adventures of Indiana Jones series that expanded the character’s mythos in blockbuster fashion!

Volume one collects: Marvel Super Special (1977) #18, #30; Further Adventures of Indiana Jones (1983) #1-16

With clouds of war gathering ominously over Europe and a Great Depression gripping the world, one globe-trotting professor’s appetite for adventure and discovery remains unsated! Join Dr. Henry Jones as he scours the farthest corners of the planet in a constant race to keep priceless artifacts out of the wrong hands!

This volume collects the second half of the action-packed Further Adventures of Indiana Jones series alongside the official adaptation of beloved film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - featuring work by some of the biggest talents of the 1980s.

Volume two collects: Further Adventures of Indiana Jones (1983) #17-34, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) #1-4

Indiana Jones And The Return to Marvel Comics

Main cover art for issue 1 by Bryan Hitch

Just when it felt I was giving up on Marvel Comics, they only go and drop this massive, surprise, revelation at this weekend's San Diego Comic Con: a brand new Indiana Jones comic is coming in December!

Happy Christmas!

Indiana Jones and The Sword of Pandemonium is a five-issue miniseries written by Jason Aaron, with art by Aaron Kuder.

In the wake of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indy’s most notorious villains, including the impossible return of an archenemy, seek a terrifying new source of power to recoup their loss - one that’s fallen into the hands of his former companion, Marion Ravenwood.

Now, Indiana Jones has to race to the far corners of the globe in search of a biblical weapon, embarking on an epic quest that will put both his archaeology skills and scepticism of the supernatural to the ultimate test!

This is being described as the "beginning of a new era of Marvel’s Indiana Jones comics", so while it's a pity it's not an ongoing Indiana Jones title straight off the bat, like in the "good old days" of Indy's first stint at Marvel, things sound promising.

With Jason Aaron scripting the Indiana Jones and The Sword of Pandemonium mini it is pretty much guaranteed to be a best-seller and will hopefully lead to more books in the near future.

Connecting variant cover art by Aaron Kuder

Variant cover art by Alex Ross

EPISODE SEVEN: 'Relaxing Cruise' Ends In Cretaceous Chaos

SS Endeavour

After escaping the sinking of Atlantis, Onyx's seaplane - The Wave Hopper - needed serious repairs and so we headed for Bermuda for a rendezvous with our old friend, The Governor (who we'd previously rescued from Nazis and dinosaurs... it's a long story).

We also sought some much needed rest-and-recuperation at The Explorers Club, although they had other ideas.

Oynx decided to stay in Bermuda to oversee the repairs [as Mark, her player, is currently unable to join us for our monthly games] and so, after some socialising with the muckety-mucks of the British colony, we took a supposedly easy job from our sponsors at The Club.

Our task - which was described to us as "taking a relaxing cruise" - was simply to sail to Mexico to collect some Mayan artifacts from the Yucatan Peninsula and then transport them back to New York.

We'd been booked passage on an old tramp steamer, the SS Endeavour, under the auspices of one Captain Redgrave, a most amenable fellow.

Captain Redgrave

Unfortunately - and yet not wholly unexpectedly - not long after we set sail a mysterious swell started buffeting the ship, rising to a violent storm that tossed the Endeavour about so much that eventually all the crew and passengers were knocked unconscious... leaving the ship to drift.

When we all awoke the next day, it was about noon, the sun was directly overhead and everything seemed to have calmed down.

Conversing with Redgrave, though, we soon discovered that the ship's compass wasn't working, and when Buck (my explorer) checked his own that wasn't working either. We even went to the effort of making a third, basic, compass... but to no avail.

After a considerable time passed, we all realised that the sun hadn't moved, meaning navigation was going to be a major issue. [NB. This is a phenomenon, I believe, we first encountered when we travelled through a portal to an alien world in our July, 2021, game].

Further consultations with Redgrave led to a decision to head nominally west (or where we thought west was), with Buck stationed at the prow using his binoculars to sight land.

There was definitely something - small - on the horizon, but it was blurred by a heat haze.

But, at least, it gave us something to head for.

What no one expected was the sudden arrival of a vicious and hungry plesiosaur!

[NB. This was not our first plesiosaur. Earlier in the campaign, Tessie, Lake Tahoe's lake monster, turned out to be one. We met her in our April 2021 game, when we were in an apocalyptic, 1950s story arc].

It's big rubbery neck and terrifying teeth were tearing crew members apart, even while Dick (Kevin's crackshot ex-G-man) was riddling it with bullets... and I was not. Freya (Clare's photojournalist) was getting some excellent pictures but when a couple of seamen went overboard, she led the rescue efforts.

Buck ran back to his cabin to retrieve his hunting rifle, as Freya threw a line to the surviving sailor in the drink, Bob, and - assisted by a couple of other crewmen - pulled him up onto the deck and away from the dinosaur's wrath.

I think Bob has taken quite a shine to Freya. Let's see how that develops.

By the time Buck returned, Dead-Eye Dick had managed to put a bullet in the beast's brain, causing the dinosaur's corpse to slide back into the water.

The Endeavour had taken a lot of damage, but Redgrave was determined to get it to the island ahead of us that had now come into view.

He powered the engines as best he could, but things were not looking - or sounding - good.

To add to our troubles, a couple of smaller plesiosaurs had scented blood in the water and were swimming towards our sinking ship.

When the engines finally gave up the ghost, Redgrave ordered everyone to abandon ship in the two lifeboats.

Bob and another sailor, Smudge, joined us in one, while the Captain and the remaining crew took the other.

Bob and Smudge rowed for their lives as Dick and I tried to provide covering fire for the Captain's boat as the plesiosaurs targeted it.

The second lifeboat was lost with all hands

Sadly there was little we could do and that lifeboat - and all aboard - were lost to the monsters, but their sacrifice allowed us time to make it to the tropical island.

And what a beautiful island it was. White beaches, palm trees, and noisy wildlife in the tree tops.

Buck spotted a trail through the jungle - and then a line of smoke rising in the distance. We were not alone. 

But for all this death and carnage, Buck was buzzing with excitement as he was putting the clues together. Had his lifetime obsession with finding the "Hollow Earth" finally come true? The compasses, the dinosaurs, the static sun, the Bermuda Triangle.

However, as he led the group down the trail, his sixth sense alerted him to some danger... sadly, too late, to avoid the two pair of [Jurassic Park-style] velociraptors that targeted the weakest links in our party: the two battered seamen.

[NB. We first met velociraptors on a mysterious island in our April 2022 game when the plane we were travelling in was forced to land after a tussle with German agents]

We made short work of these escapees from the Cretaceous Era, but Smudge was a goner. Bob, however, earned the nickname 'Lucky Bob' after he fended one off in unarmed combat and escaped without injury.

The trail led to an ancient wall, behind which we could hear the familiar tones of orders being barked in German.

Peering through a crack, we saw Nazi troopers, a submarine (sporting a peculiar dish on its conning tower) in a lagoon, ancient ruins, native huts, and enslaved local "ape-people" being forced to dig for "something".

"We never seem to get a break, do we?"

- Marion Ravenwood, Raiders of The Lost Ark

TO BE CONTINUED...

CAST:

• Buck Hannigan - Me
• Freya Larson - Clare
• Dick Tate - Kevin
• Onyx Jones - NPC

DIRECTOR:

• Pete

Buck & Dick (top) and Onyx & Freya (bottom)

If you want to keep abreast of the action in our current season of Pete's Weird Science campaign (currently using the OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES system from Two Little Mice)
then visit this page to find links to all our previous episodes.

Red Sonja (2025)

I'd put off watching Red Sonja for ages because I really, really wanted it to be a grand slice of sword-and-sorcery, but everything I had heard about it said it was awful.

If I remember rightly, the film had languished in post-production hell for (seemingly) years after it was shot, then suddenly popped up, got a single-night cinema release (I guess for legal or accounting reasons) and was then dropped on digital and solid media without much fanfare.

Things were not looking good, but I still held out hope.

And the thing, now that I've seen it, I wouldn't call it bad per se. But I couldn't, in all conscience, call it good either.

Red Sonja was created for Marvel Comics, at the height of their Conan boom in the 1970s. Although she treads the Hyborian Age lands of Robert E Howard's Conan, she was never a character in Howard's books. He wrote about a 16th Century warrior called Red Sonya. But there is no connection - except for red hair and a similar name.

Red Sonja is now a hugely successful character at Dynamite Comics, with several titles of her own as well as frequent transdimensional crossovers with other members of their stable, but still operating primarily in a version of Howard's Hyborian Age.

The film script by Tasha Huo bandies around names from Robert E Howard's adventure yarns of Conan The Barbarian, and I think there was even a half-hearted (and erroneous) nod to the Cimmerian warrior himself. 

But, Red Sonja never feels like it's part of an epic, sweeping world. It all feels rather small and ragtag, like a Roger Corman offering from the 1980s (but devoid of the raucous charm those films often had).

The scenery, both the Bulgarian exteriors and the (presumably) CGI fantasy locations and sets are all very impressive and certainly help create the mood for a fantasy movie.

It's just Huo's script and the direction of MJ Bassett that lets down the brave actors, who are coping as best they can with the material they have to work with.

After she survives the slaughter of her tribe by barbarians, Sonja (Matilda Lutz) grows up in an enormous forest, always looking for other survivors. I find it hard to believe, no matter how big this forest is supposed to be, that after 10 or 15 years she'd found no clues.

Eventually, she comes to the attention of the wicked emperor Draygan (The Umbrella Academy's Robert Sheehan) when she is captured and forced to fight in his gladiatorial arena.

Of course, she organises a rebellion and leads the gladiators to their freedom. They are pursued by Draygan and his army, which includes his consort, the highly-skilled ex-pit fighter Annisia (Krypton's Wallis Day), who is more adept with a blade than Sonja. 

And, honestly, that's about it for plot.

There's a bit about Draygan seeking the lost half of his ancient "book of secrets", which helps tie him (unsurprisingly) into Sonja's backstory. 

Despite what the Japanese film poster (below) may suggest, Draygan is not a wizard (which would have been way cooler) but some kind of techno-inventor. He's not quite steampunk, but he does create spikey Warhammer-like vehicles and mortars, which just feel incongruous in this setting.

Nature-loving Sonja has a special bond with her horse, which really reminded me of Brego and Aragorn in The Two Towers, but might also be a take on Geralt of Rivia and his horse, Roach, in The Witcher.

Like quite a lot in Red Sonja, this bond isn't really explained. And while some things work as a mystery, others need some degree of backstory.

For instance, there are a couple of great-looking ape-people in the film. And I liked the fact that there was no explanation of their presence, their species didn't even get a name. They were just part of the ensemble of characters.

We also can't overlook the nice gag about Sonja's infamous chainmail bikini. 

Towards the final act, Sonja undergoes a mystical transformation, truly becoming the She-Devil With A Sword we know from the comics - but really it's too late in the story.

This also really draws attention to the character's pre-transformation competence, the script never really gets a handle on how good a fighter she is supposed to be. Her skill with various weapons changing from scene-to-scene as the script required it.

However, upon her post-transformation return for the final showdown, she seems to have become almost a superhero (there's definitely a touch of The Crow in her face paint).

And, as with the bulk of superhero movies that follow this arc, it would have been far more interesting if she had been "powered up" from much earlier in the story. Gandalf didn't become Gandalf The White just for the Battle at The Gates of Mordor in Lord Of The Rings.

The fight sequences in Red Sonja are generally okay, but the majority of actual death scenes either happen off-camera, in darkness or hidden some other way. This isn't what the target audience for this genre of movie are looking for.

That being said, I was surprised at how touching and well-done the last moments between Sonja and Draygan were, as I'd been expecting her just to lop his head off.

However, Red Sonja's very final scene, set some time later, is a hilariously unearned attempt (imitating Marion Ravenwood's introduction in Raiders of The Lost Ark) to pry the door open for a sequel.

Don't hold your breath.

Japanese poster for Red Sonja

OUTGUNNED ADVENTURES: A Player's Perspective

The Tuesday Knights tackle our second Outgunned Adventures session

Hopefully you've already read the write-up of what went down in this week's Outgunned Adventures session for the Tuesday Knights, but I thought I'd give you a little perspective on the game from my point-of-view, as a player.

First things first, I have to say that despite my deep-rooted dislike of "dice pool" mechanics there's something about the system at the heart of Outgunned that really appeals to me.

It takes the common "ability + skill" approach to decide the size of your available d6 dice pool, but then once you roll you're not totalling the dice or looking for specific numbers over a certain value, instead you want collections of identical numbers (such as 4,4,4 on three of the six dice you rolled). The larger that collective the better.

It's a bit like Yahtzee.

However, if you don't get a big enough set (usually three identical numbers are required for a typical, heroic action), you can elect to reroll the dice from your pool that weren't counted in the matching set, to try and get more duplicates.

Unfortunately, if this reroll doesn't add to your original total you actually forfeit one of the dice already counted towards your success total. That means if you only had two matches to start with, you automatically fail.

I loved this risk/reward gambling element. There was a definite air of tension around the table when people chose to reroll - followed by elation if they succeeded and despair if they failed.

The Outgunned game engine is a seemingly simple system at first glance, but there are definite nuances and complications that we're not totally savvy with yet.

For instance, there are issues around the rerolls - and "free" rerolls that our characters' Feats/Abilities granted them - that need to be ironed out.

And, as much as I enjoy an exciting skill challenge, I couldn't help but feel that there was a LOT of dice rolls called for in our opening scenario. Surely some of these multiple checks to advance through a certain task (such as climbing a cliff wall) could have been bundled together?

That said, I already rate these mechanics way ahead of the Ubiquity dice pool system used in our previous Hollow Earth Expedition segment of Pete's on-going weird science/pulp adventure campaign.

Having championed Ubiquity for so long in theory, it was quite sad to discover what a mess it often turned out to be in actual play whenever we tried anything beyond a straight-forward test of our skills.

It should be noted, of course, that this first two-part Outgunned adventure (Frozen Legacy) only involved our heroes facing the elements, rugged terrain, and a tricky set-piece to retrieve the "mysterious artefact".

We have yet to discover how the mechanics handle combat (usually such a key part of our games) and damage.

While we lost "Grit" (the game's version of stamina and 'hit points') through failing crucial challenges (such as keeping our balance on the violently rocking Viking longship), we have no clue how this translates to gunbattles and fisticuffs.

Pete started the evening by presenting us with nicely filled in character sheets as well as small file of papers explaining both the basic rules mechanics of Outgunned and personal explanations of our character's skills, Feats (special abilities), and equipment. This was all very handy.

It was a shame Mark couldn't make last night's session. However, on the bright side it means we'll get another refresher course on the core rules again next month, which will hopefully fill in a few of the gaps in our knowledge of the system.

I think between us - as we have some pretty smart cookies around the table - we should be able to get to grips with the subtleties of Outgunned Adventures. This will let the rules slip into the background and we can be free to carve Indiana Jones-inspired roles for our characters in this brave, new world of 1936.

If Adventure Has A Name, It Must Be The Tuesday Knights

On and off, the Tuesday Knights (my gaming group) has been playing Pete's period pulp action campaign for 32 sessions over three years. He likes to keep things fresh by switching the rules system for every story arc.

We started in the 1950's, fighting zombies and giant monsters - even travelling to an alien world at one point - using GURPS Atomic Horror, then we slipped through a portal to the 1930's for an extended Hollow Earth Expedition-fuelled hike from New York to Antarctica, punching villains in the face along the way, and finally being drawn into some Lovecraftian cosmic horror shenanigans that were a delicious blend of John Carpenter's The Thing and old HPL's At The Mountains of Madness.

That adventure culminated with my character Buck Hansen, a world-weary big game hunter and explorer, managing to blow up - rather impressively - a newly-risen ancient god.

The other members of the team are Kevin as former G-man Dick Tate, Mark as daredevil aviatrix Onyx Jones (he took over Erica's character when she left the group), and Clare as photojournalist Freya Larson.

For the next stage of the campaign - which is scheduled to begin in December (all being well) - Pete is turning to Outgunned Adventures, a standalone spin-off of the popular Outgunned system from Two Little Mice.

I think we're staying in the 1930's for the moment, but hopefully there will be an in-game explanation for the subtle changes in our characters (and the new rules mechanics).

The other night Pete came round to talk through the new game with me and seek my assistance in roughing out conversions of the characters from HEX to Outgunned.

I was extremely flattered by this, especially given that my recent attempts to get a campaign going (a Shadowdark game that lasted one session and a Villains & Vigilantes one that lasted three sessions) both fizzled out in most depressing manners.

The Outgunned Adventures rules book is gorgeous, both in its layout and art, and full of homages to the Indiana Jones movies (particularly Raiders of The Lost Ark).

The game's core system seems elegantly straight-forward (but then again so did HEX - in theory - which turned into a confusing mess in play).

Tests in Outgunned are made with small dice pools of two to nine six-sided dice and you are looking to match numbers to score successes (e.g. roll 5d6 and threes come up on four of the dice, then that's four successes).

Although I'm still not a massive fan of dice pool mechanics, as I grow older and more befuddled I've come to really appreciate simplicity at the heart of my games (which was one of ways I went wrong with Villains & Vigilantes game).

Outgunned's dice pool mechanics are rather different than the HEX approach to generating successes, but hopefully the Tuesday Knights will latch on quickly.

Pete and I were able to find pre-generated templates that matched the characters in our little group, and then went through the personalisation process of picking out various traits and abilities that matched those that our characters had used in the earlier adventures.

Flicking through the book, I couldn't help but keep catching myself thinking "this looks really nice, perhaps I could use Outgunned to run something in a different setting".

Well, in the cold light of day, I don't know about that, but - while I'm taking a break from sitting behind the GM's screen - it's certainly got me thinking more positively about running a game again... at some point in the future. 

Indiana Jones much?

Howard The Duck (1986)

When I discovered the allure of DVDs in the 1990's, I made a short list of films I just had to own in that format.

One was a definitive cut of Blade Runner and the other was Howard The Duck which, to be honest, I thought might never see the light of day.

I'm a massive fan of the late Steve Gerber's original Howard The Duck comic book run - which I discovered as an impressionable youngster through black and white reprints in the back of some humour magazine in the style of Mad - but not so much of the newer stuff (where he looks more like an emaciated human in a duck mask rather than an anthropomorphic duck).

Many a duck appeared in my early games of Dungeons & Dragons (including more than a few "masters of quack-fu"), although normally as non-player characters, and so imagine my excitement as I turned 20 and a film was made about Howard... by the guy who did Star Wars!

I saw it at the cinema, loved it, read the novelization, bought the soundtrack and... and... nothing. It just seemed to vanish, buried under an avalanche of unfair criticism (much fuelled, I am sure, by a backlash against Lucas for his Star Wars success).

I eagerly snatched up the VHS release when it came out, but as the years went on and technologies changed it looked as though Howard The Duck would not be making an appearance in the 21st Century.

Then in February, 2008, I caught sight of a briefly snarky preview in some film magazine and I realised my wait was over.

Viewed from a contemporary perspective, I reckon the film stands the test of time; the only elements that really look dated are the horrendous 1980s street fashions which appear to be wardrobe rejects from Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome.

ILM's special effects - particularly those surrounding Jeffrey Jones' Dr Jenning and his gradual transformation into the Dark Overlord of The Universe are still pretty neat (although the Dark Overlord himself looks like he wouldn't have been out of place on the set of Men In Black... but then again I said that about the monster in Cloverfield!).

The script is genuinely quite chucklesome, Lea Thompson is as yummy as 'love interest' Beverly as I remember her and I still enjoy Chip Zien's voice for Howard himself, although Tim Robbins is more than a bit annoying as nerdy lab assistant Phil.

Where the film has issues is its inability to judge its target audience, the script has the leaps of logic you'd expect from a kids' film, but throws in some distinctly adult themes and ideas (from Howard's part-time job in a bath house/brothel to his cross-species relationship with Beverly; funny in the comics, but slightly uncomfortable in live action!).

There's also the rather preposterous and overlong microlite chase that segues the second act into the third, and just smacks of the kind of silliness that George Lucas seems to love (see the Ewok movies, various 'comedy' moments in the Star Wars Prequels, the mine cart chase in Temple of Doom etc for further evidence of this). 

But the '80s music in Howard The Duck still rocks!

PULP PICTURE OF THE MONTH: The Phantom (1996)

The Phantom has all the ingredients of a true pulp classic: Oriental pirates, mysterious native tribes, a plucky heroine, a quest for supernatural artifacts, feckless treasure hunters, sexy sky pirates (led by Catherine Zeta Jones), lost islands, corrupt city officials and a costumed comic book hero.

The year is 1938 and evil American business tycoon Xander Drax (Treat Williams) will do anything he can to lay his hands on the three Skulls of Touganda, which when brought together can generate an unstoppable energy force, and it's up to "the Ghost That Walks" aka The Phantom (Billy Zane) to ride out of his cave lair on the island of Bengalla and stop him.

Stylistically heavily influenced by the Indiana Jones movies of the '80s, The Phantom is harmless hokum but not without some moments of extreme silliness - such as why Kit Walker (Zane) can enter an otherwise empty room and then The Phantom appears and no one realises they are one and the same person?

And what would have happened if the first two magical skulls had been brought together in a room without a convenient giant map on the wall? How would they have indicated the location of final skull then?

Some of the film's special effects (for instance, the view out of Drax's office window is clearly a painting and not a very good one), and stunts, are rather dated and let's be honest: The Phantom's purple body suit and domino mask may work in the comics, but look rather suspect in the flesh.

The climatic duel between The Phantom's magic ring and the power of the skulls, as wielded by Drax, pushes the corny cheese factor just a bit too far and the whole story is probably too simplistic for modern audiences, but the film still manages to evoke the feeling of the pulp era Saturday morning serials.

SAW WEEK: Saw - The Final Chapter (2010)

The ironically named Saw; The Final Chapter (there are already further movies and possibly more, I guess) was full of surprises.

The biggest being that I came away from this gory offering with great admiration for the tight plotting of the whole franchise to date.

This episode had ties to numerous events - but possibly not explained - in previous chapters, and I like to think was all planned from a very early stage.

Of course, this also further compounds the feeling I mentioned the other day that the on-going saga - which is seven parts of a single story - as much like a blood-spattered  HBO series as a horror movie franchise.

While occasionally looking like a cheap '80s cop show, and sometimes hampered by some hilarious overacting from key players in the story, Saw: The Final Chapter (aka Saw 3D aka Saw VII) manages to cram so much into the first hour that you think the credits are about to roll, and then a whole new development unfolds.

The film also brought back Cary Elwes as Dr Gordon, from the original (and best) Saw flick, which I wasn't expecting 

The first big Jigsaw trap takes place in broad daylight in a storefront window, which seems too public for a classic Jigsaw trap and appears to serve only to later reintroduce the survivors as members of a support group.

The main trap-driven plotline of the movie, which was presumably all set up before John Kramer (Tobin Bell) died (he appears in a telling flashback scene), centres around testing Bobby Dagen (Sean Patrick Flanery, of Young Indiana Jones fame).

Bobby has made a name for himself on the self-help circuit (which is where he crosses paths for the blokes from the storefront trap) after publishing a book documenting his supposed survival in one of Jigaw's games. Only it's all bullshit.

So Jigsaw has Bobby kidnapped and then runs him through a series of tests, with the life of one of his friends and confidantes in the balance each time.

Let's just say Bobby isn't very good at these games.

Meanwhile, the police are closing in on Jigsaw's surviving accomplice, Mark Hoffman (Costas Manylor), who escaped the "reverse bear-trap" that Kramer's ex-wife Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell) put him in at the end of the last movie.

Hoffman is now on the hunt for Jill, who turns herself over to the authorities seeking protection and immunity.

I have to say, while it eventually all comes together very satisfactorily, I haven't been impressed for a while about how the franchise got hijacked by Hoffman's story.

As becomes increasingly clear in this chapter, he's just a deranged mass murdering serial killer, without the code of ethics (and superhuman engineering skills and limitless resources) of the more charismatic - but deceased - John Kramer.

I keep coming back to the conclusion, even though killing off the main villain and then continuing his deeds posthumously is a brilliant twist, that John Kramer's Jigsaw would have made an archetypal Batman villain... and I'd have loved to have seen a gritty crossover with the Christopher Nolan era Batman movies. 

While the planned sequel to Saw VII never got made, as box office interest in the franchise was waning, I'm looking forward to finding out how this all ties in to 2017's Jigsaw... and then Spiral: From The Book of Saw.

A Tale of Two Exorcists

After Paul Schrader had filmed Dominion: Prequel To The Exorcist, the studio took it away from him - because his psychological horror was not the gore-fest they'd wanted - and handed over the reins to Cliffhanger's Renny Harlin.

The film underwent a major rewrite, some recasting and an almost total reshoot and emerged on the silver screen as Exorcist: The Beginning in 2004.

Schrader's version - although highly anticipated (this was the man who wrote Taxi Driver after all) went unseen until all the Exorcist films were released together on DVD in the early 2000s.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure if the wait was worth it. Dominion is very rough round the edges, and while it builds slowly (like the original Exorcist - but totally devoid of the genuine fear that film still invokes after all these years) and the threat level is allowed to gradually develop as the madness of the demon Pazazu spreads out from its hiding place, nothing very substantial actually ever materialises.

And the "suddenly everything is better" ending is shameful.

Both films follow a young Father Merrin (Stellan Skarsgaard), who has left the church to pursue his passion for archaeology after a crisis of faith during the Second World War.

In 1947 East Africa he investigates a mysterious, perfectly preserved, buried church... and what lies beneath.

But where Dominion goes for discreet imagery and symbolism, Exorcist: The Beginning relies on in-your-face shocks and a gruesome body count. Merrin in this film is more a shotgun-wielding, babe-snogging, tomb-robbing Indiana Jones than the conflicted priest of the earlier iteration.

The film's main female character - a doctor - changes from the 'average/normal' looking woman of Dominion into the Swedish beauty of the second (as Harlin says in the 'making of' doc: "You don't go to the cinema to see everyday people").

The African natives, who play a smaller role in the The Beginning, have also learned to speak perfect English. The language-barrier was something that Schrader had used in his version to emphasise the differences and rising tensions between the locals and the British Army occupiers.

Pazuzu itself, once it appears, has also been transformed from a floating baldy guy into a gravely-voiced, Buffyesque, butt-kicking monster with direct visual lifts from the original (something sorely lacking in Schrader's version).

Harlin's film also cherrypicks from other horror classics, for instance we get the flys from The Amityville Horror and mad priests and menacing dogs (in this case, hyenas) from The Omen.

This is The Exorcist for the Nightmare on Elm Street/Friday 13th generation, who don't like their horror to test their brains too much; but 'sadly' it's still a more exciting movie than Schrader's insubstantial meditation on the nature of evil.

The Tuesday Knights May Be On An Extended Hiatus, But The Gaming Wheels Are Still Turning

Today is the 17th anniversary of the first gathering of our gaming group, The Tuesday Knights.

However, we are currently on an extended hiatus - for various reasons we haven't gamed since May and now, of course, I'm rather entangled in a medical "mystery" as science tries to figure out why my legs aren't working properly!

I've thus pulled the plug on my supers' game, as Pete has stepped up with a new system he has invested in, to continue his long-running time travel/alternate reality campaign, which has so far bounced from GURPS Atomic Horror to Hollow Earth Expedition.

Next up will be Outgunned, which I'm very excited about as it's a game I was seriously considering picking up when it was launched through some crowdfunding programme or another. It's "cinematic action" vibe really appeals to me, so I'm looking forward to playing this.

I think we might still be playing in the same Indiana Jones-inspired inter-war setting in which our HEX game was set, presumably using the Outgunned Adventure supplement, although, to be honest, I wouldn't mind our characters sliding into contemporary bodies for a bit of John Wick/James Bond action.

In the meantime, I've superficially been kicking around some alternate systems for me to try out on the gang once I'm feeling better and Pete takes his next break from his long-running game (currently 32 sessions over 36 months).

Top contenders for further investigation on my behalf are:

GO FER YER GUN! But rather than a straight Western, I'd be looking to "Dark Tower it up" by easily blending some magic and monsters into the mix. This would be very easy to do with the simple d20 rules of Go Fer Yer Gun! 

ALIEN RPG (EVOLVED): I haven't read enough of the original edition to really get my head round the system, but there's a new edition out later this year (I didn't back the Kickstarter) and I really love the setting.

STAR TREK ADVENTURES (2nd Edition): I've never really grokked the 2d20 system that Modiphius uses to power most of its RPGs, but I know a lot of online buddies talk of playing in ongoing, long-running campaigns with this game. And who doesn't love Star Trek, right? I have the starter set for the new edition, just need to get round to reading the books.

PLANET OF THE APES: Another setting I adore. I can't help imagining the team as crashed astronauts on a post-apocalyptic Earth being pursued by trumpet-blowing gorillas.

The rules are variation on the old West End Games d6 system, which many, many people speak highly of although I've never played it. I didn't back the Planet of The Apes Kickstarter in the end, but the rule books are due out early next year.

BEYOND THE VEIL: While my previous possibilities are essentially variations on a theme, just with different settings, Beyond The Veil is nothing like any of those.

It's a roleplaying game about ghost-hunters in contemporary times. Not superheroes or trained astronauts, but members of the public - both believers and non-believers - brought together to scientifically investigate claims of the supernatural. It's The X-Files, Uncanny podcast and Stephen King horror, mingled with UFOs, cryptids and ghost stories, as read about through the pages of The Fortean Times.

Beyond The Veil is due to hit Kickstarter in a couple of months, but I already have the introductory Prologue booklet, which I'm halfway through reading.

Deadwax (2018)

To celebrate the resumption of my Shudder subscription I wanted to remind all you horror fans out there about the streaming service's selection of rare grooves and highlight one of its finest exclusive tracks that I unearthed several years ago: Deadwax.

From Indiana Jones's quest to find the Ark of The Covenant in Raiders of The Lost Ark to Norman Reedus tracking down the sole print of La Fin Absolue du Monde in Cigarette Burns, I have always had a particular penchant for stories about the hunt for cursed artifacts, sources of forbidden knowledge. 

Treading similar ground to the Constantine episode The Devil's Vinyl, Deadwax is an eight-part Shudder serial about Etta Pryce (Hannah Gross), a professional "vinyl hunter", who is tasked by one of her rich clients to track down the only pressing of a legendary record, that is said to drive those who hear it insane... or worse.

Etta doesn't always operate 100 per cent within the law, and so turns to her 'mentor', gadget-builder Ian Ullman (Xena's Ted Raimi), who also has contacts within the vinyl collecting world that can help our heroine.

Initially parallel to the main story, then intertwined, we also meet a police forensics officer, Len Perry (Evan Gamble), who accidently hears part of the 'cursed record' while at the scene of bizarre murder.

The mummified husk of the victim has had all the moisture drained from its body, while apparently listening to this particular record on headphones.

Even just listening for a second, Perry is touched by the effects of the mysterious sounds on the recording and his life quickly spirals out of control.

As each episode is only about quarter of an hour long, I'm not sure why Deadwax wasn't edited into a single movie. Unless the creators were trying to emulate the tracks of an LP, in which case they missed a trick in not naming each chapter a "track" rather than a "part".

That said, the strongest of all the episodes, which is almost a stand-alone horror story in its own right, is Part Four, which is a flashback tale about college radio DJ, Tuck Weston (Chester Rushing), and his encounter with the fabled record the whole series revolves around.

This chapter not only delivers some incredible backstory material for the story, but also amps up the strangeness that undercuts everything in Deadwax.

At the quality end of low-budget, while there's some weak rear projection moments on some of the car journey scenes in Deadwax, necessity definitely proves to be the mother of invention for the more surreal and weird effects that really bring home the Lovecraftian horror later on.

I know I bang on about "Lovecraftian" horror a lot, but while the recent Empty Man played to the cosmic horror of this sub-genre, Deadwax leans way more into Lovecraft's fondness for the dangers of weird science, with this story echoing several of his original stories in its ideas.

Written and directed by Graham Reznick, whose CV includes extensive work as a sound designer for numerous films, the unnerving creepiness factor of Deadwax helps gloss over the few cracks in the narrative.

Rather than resorting to cheap jump scares, this is smart horror that relies heavily on its viewer actually projecting themselves into the story and accepting that this could be happening to them.

Game For A Laugh

Looney Tunes Monopoly, which we played earlier this month, was one of the best

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host an (almost) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is a collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the two-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons to Harry Potter, James Bond to The Simpsons, and Indiana Jones to Scooby-Doo.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

All this talk of board gaming, reminds me of the recently announced documentary: The Hobby - Tales From The Tabletop.

This fascinating dive into the culture of board gamers "explores the passionate world of modern board gaming, following enthusiasts who find community and meaning through games".