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

Horror Awaits You In The Pages of New Ravenloft Comic

Ravenloft rises from the grave once more to terrify comic book readers this August with a new eponymously titled four-part miniseries from Dark Horse.

Ravenloft is falling apart, and nobody knows why. Fortunately, monster hunter Ez D’Avenir is on the case! She’s searching the frozen wasteland of Lamordia for an undead creature that may hold the key to Ravenloft’s fate. But when Darklord Viktra Mordenheim catches wind of her quest, Ez is suddenly the one being hunted!

Dungeons & Dragons: Ravenloft, a new four-issue genre-bending comic series will unite Rudolph van Richten’s protégés from across the horrifying domains of Ravenloft.

The miniseries is written by Bram Stoker Award–winning author Amy Chu (Carmilla: The First Vampire, Red Sonja), with line art by Ariela Kristantina (The Girl Who Draws on Whales, Adora and the Distance), colours by Arif Prianto (Poison Ivy, Green Lantern Corps), and letters by Haley Rose-Lyon (BUMP: A Horror Anthology, Jill and the Killers).

Issue #1 will feature cover art by Guillem March, Riley Rossmo, Francesco Francavilla, Todor Hristov, and Angela Wu.

The series is also being touted as the perfect companion piece to the forthcoming Ravenloft: The Horrors Within, the new TTRPG supplement book for Dungeons & Dragons 5.5 that is due out in June.

She Is Conann (2023)

Presented as a series of vignettes, 2023's She is Conann, written and directed by Bertrand Mandico, is supposedly a feminist take on Conan The Barbarian

I would beg to differ. The various segments of this French art house offering present Conann (Con-ann, gettit?) at different stages of her life (which, as far as I could tell, was the main similarity to Robert E Howard's stories of Conan The Barbarian), starting as a peasant girl captured by barbarians led by the red-haired Sanja (also called Sonja), played by Julia Riedler.

Both Sanja and Conann turn out to be immortal - for no readily explained reason - but whereas Sanja is played by the same actress throughout her various appearances, Conann is portrayed by a succession of different actresses: Claire Duburcq at age 15, Christa Théret at age 25, Sandra Parfait at age 35, Agata Buzek at age 45, and Nathalie Richard at age 55.

Nearly always in her orbit is the dog-man Rainer (Elina Löwensohn), a cameraman documenting her life and narrating the movie. All very gender-fluid and meta, but ultimately sound and fury signifying nothing. 

Rainer (Elina Löwensohn)

Why is Rainer a dog-person? Who knows! However, I must admit that the make-up on Löwensohn (and the other dog-people who pop up) is very impressive. My mind couldn't help wandering to the dog-people of Jeff Noon's excellent Vurt books, and wondering why these had never been adapted to the big screen.

Perhaps She is Conann is meant to be a commentary on the broader machismo and sleaze of many of barbarian movies of the 1980s? However, to my mind, any film that requires a crib sheet to fully grok is a huge red flag.

She is Conann begins in a sci-fi/fantasy world (supposedly Sumeria, but you'd never know), with strong '80s-throwback, retro vibes (accentuated by the fact that the entire film is shot on a series of soundstages with old school, direct-to-video, levels of set decoration).

The story soon jumps to a more contemporary period and all semblance of a sword-and-sorcery setting is forgotten (bar the odd reference to "barbarism").

Every segment ends - segueing into the next - with the Conann of that period being slain by her next 'incarnation', until the final story when she has become a multimillionaire patron of arts and gives herself up to the artists she supports as an edible work of art.

The creators can only inherit Conann's limitless wealth if they totally consume her specially-prepared body.

The deliciously disturbing body horror sequence that follows is really the highlight of She is Conann. 

This being the most overt, and clear, segment of the movie, I'm pretty sure there was a clever metaphor about 'eating the rich' in there should you be inspired to look for it.

Shot primarily in black and white, but switching to colour every now and again, She is Conann is also largely in French (with subtitles) except for a segment set in '80s New York when the characters speak - and swear - in English.

Ultimately, the 105-minute movie is a stylish, but empty, mélange of assorted styles and ideas from far superior sources, the unique cinematic voices of Peter Greenaway and Derek Jarman mixed with literary tropes from Michael Moorcock and William S Burroughs.

Oddly though, as infuriatingly incomprehensible as much of it is, the story flows and moves quickly, probably helped along by the comparatively short length of time spent on each period of Conann's life.

But that also means each iteration never hangs around long enough for us to truly understand her character at the moment in her life or her motivations.

Presumably every directorial and narrative choice in the film has been made for a reason, it's just unclear what those reasons were.

On paper Bertrand Mandico's recipe for reimagining Conan The Barbarian should have created a perfect meal for this viewer, who usually has a lot of time for clever art films, but instead She is Conann is disappointingly too pretentious for its own good.

Six Degrees of Separation

The movie Hombre is one of my favourite Westerns. It was recommended to me by a tutor on my scriptwriting degree course (as inspiration for the Western I was writing as part of my finale project).

The movie is based upon a novel by the late and lauded Elmore Leonard.

The other day, randomly, I picked up my copy of Hombre and read the first chapter. This got me wondering what stories were included in the chunky hardback, The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard, which I'd purchased last year.

The book flopped open to a title page I hadn't seen before... revealing that it was signed by Leonard himself.

This made me grin like a loon, as I'm a sucker for such dedications in books. Remember my excitement when I found the signed book in a sale at our local second hand book store.

Being a homebody generally, it's very unlikely that I'll get to pose for selfies with my favourite authors, actors etc

So I prefer "signed items" instead. I have a collection of signed Philip Reeve books (my favourite author) and head shots of stars of Classic era Doctor Who - from Carole Ann Ford and William Russell to Sophie Aldred and Sylvester McCoy. These latter pictures are proudly framed and displayed on the office wall, while my Philip Reeve library has its own shelf in one of the lounge cupboards.   

Back in February, I acquired from an online store (not Amazon) a limited edition (#365 of 750), first edition (with red page edges) of Red Sonja: Consumed by Gail Simone (which was signed by the author).

I was most delighted by this, and then when I shared it on BlueSky, Gail herself replied, hoping I'd enjoy the book.

The other week, a postcard winged its way across The Atlantic, signed by Dungeons & Dragons YouTube "influencer" Ginny Di.

This was a reward for supporting her Patreon (which I've been a member of since 2020).

It wasn't just Ginny's signature - and the details of an enchanted weapon to be used in a RPG - that made this magical though. It was the fact that a postcard had managed to find its way over here to the UK without getting mangled or lost. 

A signature is a sign of caring (I know many things get signed in a production line-like setting, but the fact is the creator is still doing it).

I may spend 90 per cent of my life within the four walls of our house, but receiving a signed item from someone whose work I admire (even it's purely by chance, such as the Elmore Leonard book) is a connection.

At one end of the process, the artist has signed their work and at the other end I get to hold it in my hands and appreciate the time spent both creating their art and signing my book, picture, postcard etc

In The Name of The King - The Last Mission (2014)

Dominic Purcell (from The Arrow'verse shows and Prison Break) is Hazen Kaine, a burned-out, no-nonsense American hitman working in Bulgaria. His "last" job - before retirement - is to kidnap the two daughters of the Bulgarian royal family, so his paymasters can demand an enormous ransom.

Although he's having doubts about his latest assignment, he hides the girls in the nominated shipping container anyway, then notices that one is wearing a pendant that matches the tattoo on his arm (which his late wife chose for him).

The girl tells Hazen the medallion, a family heirloom and talisman of protection against things he wouldn't understand, is magical. He takes it outside for a closer look... and causes a rift in time and space to materialise and drag him through.

Hazen finds himself in a mysterious land - which, he later learns is also called Bulgaria, but clearly is a fantastical, pseudo-Medieval version - and stumbles into a nearby village which is being attacked by a dragon!

He uses the last bullets in his gun to drive off the dragon, in the process befriending a pair of warrior princesses, Arabella (Ralitsa Paskaleva), and Emeline (Daria Simeonova).

They're living in this village because of Game of Thrones-style violent machinations which saw one of their uncles, Tervon (Marian Valev), usurp their father and steal his throne.

They are now part of a rebellion led by their other uncle, Tybalt (Nikolai Sotirov).

Eventually, Hazen comes to accept his position in this new world - his tattoo marks him out for a special destiny - and hatches a plan that will allow him to slay Tervon and steal the king's magical medallion, which will send Hazen back to our world.

During all this he develops a rather cute and chaste romantic relationship with Arabella; the hitman's flirting technique seems to be telling her about the horrific fiery death of his wife at the hands of other gangsters.

Hazen's big plan comes to nowt, as the rebels are ambushed in a forest by Tervon and his men.

However, the fight goes surprisingly well in favour of the rebels, even though Tervon has been controlling the dragon this whole time.

The evil king flees back his castle... followed by Hazen and Arabella.

The castle is remarkably easy to access and our heroes fight their way through Tervon's goons to confront the Big Bad on the roof of the castle, where Hazen dispatches him, causing the time rift to reopen.

This time, not only does Hazen travel back to our world, but also the dragon. Not entirely sure why Arabella didn't go with him.

Hazen then races to where the kidnapped girls have been hidden and fights the mobsters who have come to collect him... at which point you realise that the head gangster Ayavlo is also played by Marian Valev.

Does this mean that Hazen's whole isekai adventures in In The Name of The King - The Last Mission were a dream? Or a metaphor? He does kidnap two young princesses in our world and then become entangled with two princesses in the fantasy world. But then how do explain the dragon now loose in the skies over Sofia? 

There's a lot that's handwaved in Joel Ross's 85-minute script and under Uwe Boll's taut - let's get things done - direction. As an example, I particularly loved the blasé attitude of, I guess, the king of Bulgaria to having his daughters kidnapped and then returned by the same person. It rather implies that this happens all the time!

Honestly, for my money, too much time is spent in modern day Sofia and I'd have preferred Hazen to stay in mythical Bulgaria with his new love... but then that would have left the kids in the shipping container and at the mercy of the gangsters.

In D&D terms, I reckon it's a young black dragon (although it breathes fire)

For a decade-old, low budget , direct-to-video sword-and-sorcery flick, all the special effects, including those that bring the dragon to life, are pretty decent. Of course, the beast is obviously CGI, but I've seen far worse in this calibre of movie (yes, Asylum, I'm looking at you).

On the other hand, the fact that the rebellion relies on caves so much - despite having several villages to call their own - is a real throwback to '80s sword-and-sorcery films that also often operated on similar microbudgets and had to make do with what nature provided.

Director Uwe Boll certainly makes great use of the beautiful Bulgarian landscape and the film was largely filmed at Nu Boyana Film Studios where, co-incidentally, the new Red Sonja movie was shot as well as Jason Momoa's Conan The Barbarian and the excellent last Hellboy movie, The Crooked Man, and many other great films.

Dominic Purcell and pretty much the entire Bulgarian cast of In The Name of The King 3 are all great and clearly invested in their roles, but they're not always best served by a script which barrels along at such speed that a lot of plot threads are just left dangling.

It's also a shame that In The Name of The King - The Last Mission appears to be totally disconnected from either the first or second films in the franchise.

I'd rather hoped that Hazen was actually in the Kingdom of Ehb (where the previous films took place) and that Arabella and Emeline were the daughters of Dolph Lundgren's Granger, to continue the generational narrative of the two earlier movies.

I guess there's always headcanon. 

PROJECT 60: What's To Be Read?

Inspired, in large part, by Booktube - and Michael K Vaughan, in particular - I'm setting myself some personal "book reading challenges" for 2026.

In recent years my reading has gotten a bit slack, for various reasons (a combination of health, the easy ubiquity of television, and general laziness), and so I have been inspired to inject a bit of discipline into this important pastime.

The first challenge (seeking to emulate Michael's "reading Superman every day") is to Read Judge Dredd Every Day.

The plan is to start at the first page of the first Complete Case Files (which reprint every Dredd yarn in chronological order) and read on from there. Over the years I have accumulated (as shown above) the Complete Case Files 1 - 20, with some waifs and strays from the later volumes.

So, that should keep me going for a good while. 

The other challenge I'm setting myself is to read the new Conan The Barbarian hardback novels (see below), published by Titan, as well as the Red Sonja novel written by the peerless Gail Simone.

I think this is a solid basis for getting some organised reading going in the New Year.

Hopefully, by then, I will have made significant headway into my backlog of monthly comics (I'm pretty sure I'm six or so months behind on most titles), as well as trimming my pull-list to prevent such scenarios arising again (and for financial and space reasons).

There's also a new Philip Reeve book, Bridge of Storms, due in February, which will obviously jump to the top of my TBR pile the moment it drops on my doormat.

Audiobook-wise, I'm working my way steadily through Stephen King's Dark Tower saga - with diversions to other worlds between each volume - and hope to start book four, Wizard and Glass, in late January/early February.

This will be new territory for me, as I'd originally read the first three books pretty soon after they were published (not that I could remember much past the first, so the audios felt like new stories anyway).

This is an exciting prospect - even if Wizard and Glass is over 27 hours long - as I've oft wondered how the tale of Roland the Gunslinger concludes... and have been very diligent in avoiding spoilers for all these years.

I have a shelf of King books, outside of The Dark Tower they're mainly collections of short stories but I also have The Shining, which may get a look-in next year, depending on how the Conan reading goes.

Stephen King shelf - with my original Dark Tower cassettes (left), with King reading the story

Red Sonja: Watch Two-Minute Behind-The-Scenes Sizzle Reel

Red Sonja is in cinemas for ONE NIGHT only (August 13) before its digital/home video release in September (for the UK, anyway).

After the lengthy wait, since the movie was originally announced in 2021, this does not bode well.

The lack of publicity material (e.g. posters) and general buzz, as well as the single trailer, doesn't fill me with confidence either.

Is Red Sonja's Retro Vibe A Bug or A Feature?

Red Sonja is in theaters August 15 and on digital platforms August 29!

Directed by MJ Bassett and starring: Matilda Lutz, Martyn Ford, Robert Sheehan, Wallis Day, Michael Bisping, Philip Winchester, Trevor Eve, Luca Pasqualino, Rhona Mitra

Enslaved by an evil tyrant who wishes to destroy her people, barbarian huntress Red Sonja (Lutz) must unite a group of unlikely warriors to face off against Dragan The Magnificent (Sheehan) and his deadly bride, Dark Annisia (Day).

If this trailer is anything to go by, the long-gestating adaptation of comic book character Red Sonja looks like an '80s throwback to the swords-and-sorcery cheesefests of yore. But will this work in its favour? Will it be so bad it's good or actually good?

Bear in mind that MJ Bassett directed the criminally underrated Solomon Kane movie starring James Purefoy, so she has form with this kind of storytelling. 

I can't see Red Sonja triggering a resurgence in sword-and-sorcery cinema, but, at least, it's keeping the genre alive.

Adding to the movie's "direct-to-video" feel is the fact that on the day this trailer was released the Blu-Ray was already available for pre-order on Amazon (in the UK, at least, with a mid-September release date). So, yes, before you ask: I have ordered it.