WHO'S NEXT? Candidate Number One

Nick Mohammed

With the sudden (and slightly chaotic) end of the Ncuti Gatwa's tenancy in the TARDIS as the 15th Doctor, I'm guessing the BBC is looking for a new actor to headline Doctor Who - once the "why is Billie Piper back?" last-minute twist from The Reality War has been resolved.

This post is, therefore, the first of an occasional series of my own suggestions - and those of anyone who wishes to chip in - for the role of The Sixteenth Doctor.

My current favourite choice, whose star is in the ascendant after his recent spectacular performance on Celebrity Traitors, is actor-comedian Nick Mohammed.

I can't recall where I first saw Nick, whether it was his key role in either Intelligence (with David Schwimmer) or Ted Lasso, but he gives off just the right blend of earnest decency and Machiavellian intelligence to be a Doctor in a similar style to Sylvester McCoy's Seventh or Peter Capaldi's 12th Doctor. Who just happen to be two of my favourite takes on the legendary Time Lord.

Presenting a distinctly different silhouette to previous Doctors, Nick's also a musician and magician, skills which could add interesting character quirks to his iteration of The Doctor. He's also incredibly smart, can do voices, roller-skates expertly, and is often pictured sporting a bow tie.

Besides Celebrity Traitors - which must be generating him a ton of job offers - he also played London Mayor Zafar Jaffrey in the latest season of Slow Horses (one of, if not THE, best dramas currently on television).

I fear, though, that Aunty Beeb may have missed its chance here as it feels as though 46-year-old Nick is on course for even greater things, and may quickly become unavailable for a multi-year run in the TARDIS.

Creepozoids (1987)

My best friend - and fellow crappy horror movie aficionado - Paul popped down from London the other day for one of our semi-regular film nights.

His viewing suggestion, 1987's Creepozoids, turned out to be an hilariously awful, low-budget, Alien  mockbuster-style B-movie treat.

Set in a "futuristic" 1998, six years after a nuclear apocalypse, war is still raging and five of the most useless military deserters find themselves hiding out in a mysterious, abandoned laboratory, unable to leave because of a sudden downpour of acid rain.

Remember when "acid rain" was ubiquitous in sci-fi and post-apocalyptic movies, as shorthand for manmade environmental destruction? Ahh, those were the days!

The "big name star" of Creepozoids is the delightfully scruffy Linnea Quigley (of The Return of the Living Dead and Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers fame) as Blanca, who pairs up with a walking slice of ham called Butch (Ken Abraham).

They are accompanied by the nominal leader of the pack, Jake (Richard Hawkins, who would go on to play an air traffic controller in Close Encounters of The Third Kind), his girlfriend, Kate (Kim McKamy aka adult movie star Ashlyn Gere, whose character quirk appears to be an inability to sit down during meal scenes), and anxious, tech "wiz" Jesse (Michael Aranda). You know he's the "brains" of the group because he wears glasses... and looks a bit like Shane Black's Hawkins from Predator.

Except for a short spell of exterior work to get the characters into the underground bunker, Creepozoids is shot entirely in a warehouse, with a budget of around of £15 (none of which, seemingly, went on the script).

Very quickly our heroes realise they are trapped in the laboratory complex with a large humanoid monster that is clearly a man in a bargain basement xenomorph Halloween costume.

As amusing as that creature is, it's nothing compared to the giant rats that are obviously oversized stuffed toys which the poor actors are having to shake around to simulate the vicious attacks from these killer rodents.

Impressively plotless, what passes for a story in Creepozoids (and, no, I don't know why that's the title) is a series of random encounters that rapidly whittles down our protagonists without really explaining what the creature actually wants.

Bizarrely for a film that barely clocks in with a 72 minute runtime, there's also a lot of padding in writer-director David DeCoteau's film (co-written with Dave Eisenstark under the pen name of Burford Hauser). 

Paul and I lost count of the number of times various characters crawled up and down the same, short, piece of gunge-splattered passageway.

Then the final showdown between the last man standing and the big bad monster just felt interminable. 

This climactic confrontation also took a strange turn when the monster was injected with a randomly acquired syringe of something-or-other, seemingly killing it only for - moments later - a freakish puppet baby to sprout from its head and continue the aggression.

To add insult to injury, Creepozoids doesn't even deign to have a proper conclusion - instead just suddenly ending on a freezeframe of the mutant baby. Presumably this was to set up the proposed sequel that never materialised.

Perversely, this isn't the worst film we've ever seen - that honour belongs to either Shark Exorcist or the entire Camp Blood franchise - Creepozoids almost gets a pass because it's really an extended vignette rather than an actual movie. 

And you can't really knock anything that stars Linnea Quigley.

THE RANCH GATES ARE OPEN, COME ON IN!

Photo by Gonzalo Acuña

Welcome to The Triple C Ranch*, for the official opening of the Cowboys, Capes, and Claws blog - my personal odyssey through the realms of horror movies, Westerns, and superheroes (not necessarily in that order).

Mosey on in and make yourself comfortable. There's plenty to read - and watch - from the get-go as I have postings dating back to January 1. Many of these are what I term "retro reviews" (it's in the tags under the post), which are reviews I've written over the years but were originally to be found on other sites (different blogs, Facebook etc).

However, you'll also find plenty of fresh material, encompassing my real life "adventures" and the various areas of geekdom that tickle my fancy (and hopefully yours).

I'm aiming for a laid-back, easy-going, approach here and welcome comments, opinions, and constructive criticism (even after almost two decades of blogging and a career in local and trade journalism, I'm still learning and honing my craft).

The blog was deliberately designed to be bright and cheerful and - as with all the blogs I create - is best viewed in "web format" (that is, on a laptop or PC) rather than in "mobile format". While it will, of course, be accessible in the latter format, I just feel you miss out on a lot of the bells and whistles that have come with the 'carefully crafted' appearance and features of the site.

Stetsons - and capes - are cool!

Yes, there will still be typos - even in the older material. My brain often zigs while my fingers zag - especially when I'm writing enthusiastically - and things go unnoticed because I inevitability proofread my posts "as I intended them to be" rather than "what is actually on the page".

There'll be some Doctor Who and roleplaying chatter along the way, between the comic book stuff and movie reviews.

Hopefully you'll also see a lot of wargaming-orientated material as I slowly pull together my Dead Man's Hand game and possibly a Judge Dredd one as well... before I turn 60 next year (aka PROJECT 60).

However, my recent (since July) health issues - with a diagnosis of osteoarthritis in my lumbar facet joints, and the attendant problems of major mobility issues and general weakness - have rather derailed my plans for both PROJECT 60 and my 20/20 Vision.

This has also contributed to a surprising loss of interest in roleplaying games (particularly the effort involved in running them), which I hope to dissect and analyse in due course. However, I am looking forward to playing in Pete's upcoming Outgunned game.

Contrarily - and unexpectedly at this late age - my interest in watching sports has increased dramatically, particularly Lucy Bronze and her colleagues in Chelsea Women's team.

But don't worry: this isn't going to become a sports blog - unless you count musings on Red Dwarf's Zero Gravity Football, 2000AD's Aeroball, or the awesome 1990 post-apocalyptic sports movie Salute of The Jugger.

If you've got this far, I'd be mighty pleased if you clicked on the "follow" tab down in the right-hand column (marked "posse"), to allow this humble offering to slide into your reading list - and give me some idea of how may of you fine folks are actually still interested in my twaddle.

Crack a cold one, pull up a chair, and sit a while... you've got 321 days of reading to catch up on.

* Please note, I will probably never refer to this site - or my home - as The Triple C Ranch ever again, but it worked for this welcome post.

Image by Xoán Carballo from Pixabay

Okay, So It Was The Sea Devils All Along!

In a revelation that should shock no one, it appears as though my guesses about the aquatic species in The War Between The Land and The Sea were wrong.

I had suggested that they could be the Fish People from The Underwater Menace, but the BBC has just revealed that the Third Doctor classic adventure The Sea Devils is getting a trimmed, 90-minute release just before the new serial releases - making a definitive link between the two stories.

Showrunner Russell T Davies is quoted as saying:

"Fifty-two years after they first rose from the depths, it’s Sea Devil night across the BBC! A great idea never dies, and viewers young and old can now heed the warning: watch the seas!"

The cut-down Sea Devils drops on BBC iPlayer at 6am and will be shown on BBC 4 at 7pm on Sunday December 7, with the first two episodes of The War Between The Land and The Sea then airing at 8.30pm on BBC 1.

You can read more about the return of the Sea Devils here.

Stuart Gordon's Lovecraftian Oeuvre

Lovecraft’s stories have inspired a lot of horror movies — some good, some not so much. But Stuart Gordon’s take on them always stood out.

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!

War Is Coming... Sooner Than We Expected!

Not long to wait! The War Between The Land and The Sea, the highly anticipated - but clunkily-titled - UNIT-centric Doctor Who spin-off, splashes down on BBC 1 on Sunday, December 7 at 8.30pm (and on iPlayer).

The five-part serial, which begins with a double-bill, follows:

...Barclay (Russell Tovey), a low-level UNIT staff member whose ordinary life becomes a world of terror when an ancient species rises from the sea.

Barclay becomes humanity’s ambassador when the mysterious Salt (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) emerges from the Tank at a summit on the Thames.

UNIT, led by Kate Lethbridge-Stewart (Jemma Redgrave), fights for control as humanity faces destruction.

The BBC's publicity for the show also states:

Alongside Russell Tovey, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and Jemma Redgrave, the series features a star-studded cast including Ruth Madeley as Shirley Bingham, Alexander Devrient as Colonel Christofer Ibrahim, and Colin McFarlane as General Austin Pierce.

Other previously announced cast members include Adrian Lukis, Patrick Baladi, Francesca Corney, Mei Mac, Vincent Franklin, Waleed Hammad, Iestyn Arwel, Hannah Donaldson, Manpreet Bachu, and Ann Akinjirin.

The War Between The Land and The Sea is, of course, the last remnant of the now-terminated partnership between the BBC and Disney, and is expected to surface on Disney Plus early next year.

We're all assuming the aquatic species involved is the Sea Devils, but unless this is a major redesign of a classic look, I still believe they could be the Fish People from 1967's The Underwater Menace. But, let's be honest, my suppositions on such matters are wrong more often than not!

Guardians (2017)

It may have taken me several years to track down a physical copy of this Russian superhero flick - that I first learned of it back in October 2015 - but now that I've finally gotten to see Guardians I have to say I wasn't disappointed.

It's far from perfect, but as silly fun goes it's hugely entertaining, and coming in at under an hour-and-a-half knows not to outstay its welcome

Whether due to budgetary cuts, poor editing, or something simply got lost in translation, the story's all over the place; ultimately feeling more Power Rangers or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles than Marvel Cinematic Universe.

During the cold War, mad scientist Avgust Kuratov (Stanislav Shirin) pioneered experimental techniques to turn civilians into superpowered Soviet soldiers - aka The Guardians - but then went too far, resulting in his own transformation into superstrong villain, with the power to control technology with his mind.

Kuratov has now returned, at the head of an army of clones and stolen military technology under this psychic control, and laid siege to Moscow.

The Russian authorities track down four of Kuratov's experiments - Ler (Sebastien Sisak Grigoryan), who has the power to telekinetically move rocks and earth; speedster and blademaster Khan (Sanzhar Madiev); werebear Arsus (Anton Pampushnyy); and amnesiac Kseniya (Alina Lanina), who can turn invisible and has resistance to temperature extremes - enlisting them to fight their creator.

The backstory connection between the villain and the members of The Guardians brings a strong Fantastic Four vibe to the proceedings, and while not much time is spent on sub-plots at least some effort is made to add a modicum of depth to the main characters.

Massive kudos to whoever realised the only way you could improve on having a hulking werebear as a main character would be to equip him with a frakking big machine gun, instantly turning the otherwise amusingly-named Arsus into a cult hero for the ages.

With its very simplistic, linear, storyline, Guardians is pulptastic, weird science at its finest, with surprisingly effective special effects that only occasionally feel overextended.

While best watched in the original Russian with sub-titles (the dubbing is reminiscent of cheesy '70s Hong Kong martial arts movies), this requires an extra level of commitment that I'm not sure the film truly warrants.

But if you're in the right frame of mind, and looking for a superhero film that isn't traditional American fare (but also doesn't stray too far away the standard tropes of the genre), then Guardians is well worth 86 minutes of your time.

The ending - and then the mid-credit scene - are clearly opening the door for sequels, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

It's worth noting that while the blurb on the back of the DVD packaging references a long history of "superpowered characters" - going back to Nazi experiments in the Second World War and then spreading around the globe - none of this is ever mentioned on screen.

This was either something invented by the DVD distributors, to possibly broaden the film's appeal, or backstory lifted from the original script that never made it into the actual movie.

Arsus

Kseniya

Khan

Ler

Kuratov

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Gallivanting At The Coast

The main part of my 50th birthday week (in 2016) was spent at The Gallivant, a lovely dog-friendly hotel at Camber Sands, on the South Coast.

Because we were celebrating my special day, the hotel gave us a complimentary room upgrade, along with a bottle of champers.

Although we'd brought Alice's bed from home, the hotel had provided her with her own bed, but she preferred to share our massive (and extremely comfortable) bed.

We were all rather taken with the sliding partitions that allowed the bath to be part of the main bedroom, meaning - if one so desired - it was possible to take a bath and watch the room's big screen TV!

We arrived on my birthday, and after we'd settled into the room, Rachel had arranged for me to have a relaxing, hour-long, massage, after which we took Alice for a walk to a pub down the road - The Owl - where we had a table booked for dinner.

After dinner, and a couple of free drinks with the landlord, we returned to our hotel room to watch The Martian on DVD (borrowed from the hotel's extensive DVD library).

On Thursday we took Alice for a walk on the beach at Camber Sands - during a howling gale! The poor puppy nearly got blown over as we battled against the wind and bullet-like rain. It was a struggle, but wonderfully atmospheric and oh so British!

That afternoon, we drove to Rye and treated ourselves to a meal in The Globe Inn Marsh, another very dog-friendly pub.

Alice was a big hit wherever we went, with people doting on her, giving her treats and cuddles, and she lapped it up. Although, I think, she was a bit bemused by the constantly changing environment, and all the new sights, sounds, and smells, she seemed to relish all the love and attention.

We should definitely return to The Gallivant.

It was a bit windy on the beach...

Alice doing her famous "floating head" trick as Rachel takes a picture of me taking a picture...

Captain America (1990)

I'll admit upfront that I have a soft spot for the work of late B-movie director Albert Pyun. Having had a couple of interactions with him in my previous blogging life, he came across as a lovely, genuine person.

Following on from my reviews of the last couple of days, it thus felt like time to revisit Albert's 1990 extravaganza: Captain America, featuring Matt Salinger - son of author JD Salinger - in the titular role.

Despite what you may have heard over the years, this adaptation of one of Marvel Comic's core characters isn't actually too bad. Salinger does a pretty decent job as Steve Rogers and Captain America, the costume doesn't look too silly and the production values give it the feel of Lynda Carter's Wonder Woman.

There are some odd changes to Cap's established mythology, with the most bizarre being the transformation of his legendary Nazi nemesis The Red Skull (Scott Paulin) from a German to an Italian (hand-picked as a youth by Mussolini to take part in the Nazi 'super soldier' programme).

The scientist in charge of the experiment, Dr Maria Vaselli (Carla Cassola), clearly hadn't been reading the memos and is horrified to discover that the first test subject is a young boy and so flees the country.

Seven years later, at the height of the Second World War, Vaselli is working for the American Government on its own super-soldier programme with polio victim Steve Rogers selected as the first candidate.

There's flashing lights and sparking machinery - clearly borrowed from Dr Frankenstein - before a Nazi agent kills the professor.

This is quite familiar territory for Cap fans, with him soon finding himself strapped to a Nazi superbomb heading towards the White House (which he manages to redirect at the last moment, of course) that, instead, crash lands in Alaska.

He is discovered 50 years later and refuses, at first, to believe it's now the '90s - until he meets up again with his hometown sweetheart, Bernice, and - after her death - attaches himself to her daughter, Sharon (Kim Gillingham plays both mother and daughter), who he then proceeds to drag into all kinds of danger.

The President of The United States (Ronny Cox) is kidnapped by a cartel of evil industrialists - led by The Red Skull - who opposes his pro-Green stance (they intend to stick a mind-controlling implant in him!) and Cap heads off to Italy to rescue the President from The Red Skull's castle.

There are some nice touches: such as President Kimball having been a little kid who saw Cap save The White House and was inspired by him, and the fact that The Red Skull (whose accent swings from Mafia Don to Count Dracula) mocks Cap as "his brother" (as they were both created by the same experimental science).

The main flaws with Captain America come from the fact that it looks really dated and while there are some stunts and effects they are nothing spectacular. And the same can be said of the script, by Stephen Tolkin. It's very pedestrian and despite the odd moment of inspiration it really isn't much better than a cheap, Saturday afternoon television movie, peppered - for the most part - with clunky, corny dialogue and enormous plotholes.

It even introduces us to The Red Skull's daughter, but she's a total drip compared to Sin, from the Captain America comics, which was a major disappointment as well.

However, Captain America is only 97-minutes long and while great chunks of logic and believability are sacrificed to keep the pace up, it races through the story like a steam train and carries you along quickly to its blissfully cheesy ending.

Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (1998)

When international terrorist group HYDRA steal the cryogenically-frozen body of their dead leader, Baron Von Strucker (Campbell Lane) from a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, it's time to bring grizzled Cold War veteran Nick Fury (David Hasselhoff) out of retirement.

HYDRA wants to use the "Death's Head" virus in Strucker's body to hold Manhattan to ransom, but Fury and his team are determined to shut them down.

Unfortunately, Fury falls foul of a trap set by Strucker's daughter, Andrea (Sandra Hess) aka Viper, and now only has 48 hours to save the world before the deadly toxin in his system claims his life.

Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was a TV movie from 1998 (the same year that Blade was released, the first comic book superhero film that 'got it right' in my opinion, and still several years ahead of the mainstream acceptance of superheroes as valid movie fodder with Sam Raimi's Spider-Man in 2002) that has finally been released on DVD over here - albeit a cheap-and-cheerful, vanilla, no-frills release.

Written by comic book fanatic David S Goyer, who also wrote the Blade trilogy and TV series, Dark City, the Dark Knight trilogy, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance, Man of Steel, Da Vinci's Demons etc, the plot is solid TV fare - and clearly setting itself up as a possible pilot for a series - although the dialogue leaves a lot to be desired, lurching from arch and melodramatic to cheesy and clichéd.

This telemovie has taken a lot of flak over the years, but it needs to be a considered as a artefact of its time.

It stays pretty faithful to the comic book origins of Fury and S.H.I.E.LD., featuring a lot of recognisable character names as well as an impressive rendition of the helicarrier (more industrial than the current incarnation in the big budget movies, more like a flying battleship, but at least it doesn't keep falling out of the sky) as well as Life Model Decoys and smaller bits of spy-fi kit that add nice detail to this 90-minute action-adventure.

Not sure why the HYDRA goons looked like the Observers from Fringe, but it's a striking and memorable look, so why not?

Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. is also clearly a kid-friendly movie, designed for watching over a family meal around the television, so everything is very heightened and larger than life (Andrea Von Strucker is basically a pantomime villain with an outrageous accent and a propensity for over-the-top 'evil laughter').

While it takes itself seriously, it isn't a film to be taken seriously.

The Hoff is great as Nick Fury, a towering presence and wholly convincing, tough, deadpan, one-eyed and cigar-chewing like he was in the comics I read growing up.

Personally I wouldn't have been disappointed if this had spawned a TV show back at the turn of the century - it's a hell of a lot better than the Spider-Man series with  Nicholas Hammond, and even the Incredible Hulk (which usually skates by on rose-tinted nostalgia) from the late '70s.

There wasn't any other real live-action, superhero material on TV when Nick Fury, Agent Of S.H.I.E.L.D. was released originally and, for its time, I still rate this as a success.