Spiders? Again? And This One's A Monster!

A church group's Ozark retreat turns deadly when they wander into the wrong part of the wilderness and are brutally picked off one by one.

Suspicion falls on group troublemaker Ricky (Russ Vitale), but the actual threat is far worse: a terrifying, prehistoric arachnid that hunts by vibration.

Trapped in a labyrinth of webs where every step could be their last, Megan (Lyndsy Fonseca) must hold the remaining members together and get them out alive.

Don't Move will be available on digital (in the States, anyway) from October 13. 

Hawk The Slayer (1980)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert Eggers Transforms This Unique Werewolf Tale

The Thing from Another World (1951)

"Watch the skies, everywhere! Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!"

- Ned "Scotty" Scott

US Airforce Captain Patrick "Pat" Hendry (Kenneth Tobey), his crew, and annoying newsman Ned "Scotty" Scott (Douglas Spencer) fly from Anchorage, Alaska, to a scientific research station near the North Pole, to investigate reports of a crashed aircraft.

However, they soon discover that it's actually a UFO.

Unfortunately, their attempts to remove the alien space craft from the ice results in its destruction, but they do recover the frozen body of one of its crew (James Arness), which they transport back to base.

Finding themselves cut off from civilisation due to the weather and radio interference, Pat decrees that no investigation of the alien creature can begin without the say-so of headquarters.

This frustrates gung-ho head scientist Dr. Arthur Carrington (Robert Cornthwaite), whose assistant, Nikki Nicholson (Margaret Sheridan), happens to be involved in an on-again, off-again, tempestuous relationship with Pat (which does involve bondage!).

The creature is accidentally awakened and goes on a rampage, letting the scientists at the isolated arctic base discover that it is a vegetable-based species, immune to most forms of damage.

Once the alien starts killing, secretly Carrington - and some of the scientists - also realise that the monster is after blood to feed its seedlings with, to (presumably) grow a race of killer vegetable creatures to take over the planet.

Howard Hawks's The Thing from Another World is pure action-horror pulp, pitting square-jawed heroes against an unstoppable alien menace that wants to crush their way of life and reduce mankind to the status of plant food.

Obviously, this movie was the inspiration - along with John W. Campbell Junior's story Who Goes There? - for John Carpenter's seminal The Thing, in 1982.

However, it also clearly had an influence on both Alien and Aliens, with the Air Force top brass taking a stance very similar to Weyland-Yutani when it comes to dealing with dangerous alien life forms, and the men at the base using Geiger counters in a way that presages the motion detectors famously used to track xenomorphs.

Obviously, the creature here is a very simple cinematic alien species, compared to the Lovecraftian horrors unleashed in The Thing and Alien, but nevertheless The Thing From Another World still conjures images of an alien society where humans (or their ilk) are farmed by these monstrous creatures.

Lumbering around like Frankenstein's Monster, "The Thing" is clearly a metaphor for the perceived Cold War era  'Red Menace' of Russia, lashing out at the one person that tries to reason with it - while our plucky heroes know it's a "wrong 'un" from the get-go.

Sure, it's tame compared to the movies it inspired, but The Thing From Another World remains an action-packed, sci-fi, monster flick.

MUSICAL MONDAY: Samurai Mambo (LADYBABY)

HEALTH UPDATE: Germ Season!

Photo by cottonbro studio

It's official. I have Rachel's germs. My poor wife has heroically struggled through a lengthy spell of serious lurgy, whereas I caved on Friday with a bout of 'man flu'.

While Rachel has tried to carry on as normal as much as possible, I pulled on my dressing gown and curled up in front of the television at the first sign of sniffles and a sore throat.

I'd felt achy in my joints all week, but the cold truly manifested itself on Thursday night and into the following day.

My nose was still a bit odd yesterday and my throat scratchy, but generally it all felt as though I was on the mend.

Earlier in the week, I made it to the gym solo (for the first time, Rachel was outside in the car), but wasn't up for a second workout during the subsequent days. 

Also at the start of this week, I had an epic - and very thorough - two-hour eye test at my usual opticians, with the end result being the revelation that my prescription hasn't changed enough to warrant a new pair of glasses. This was a welcome outcome in this time of tightening belts and increasing costs.

However, 'cos of the bug (even though it was quite mild), my reading plans were scuppered (the old concentration issues were magnified) and I ended up watching a lot of Star Trek: Voyager reruns instead.

Last night was spent in the company of the new season of Strictly Come Dancing and I thought I was on the mend, but when I was awoken by Alice this morning - wanting her breakfast and a wee in the garden - I realised the cold wasn't going anywhere in a hurry.

Today, I ache from head from toe, have a bunged up nose, very sore throat and watery eyes. Seems like the germs have arrived in earnest now.

The Twenty Best Western Movie Villains Of All Time (1950-2026)

"The Western genre has produced some of the most original and memorable villains in the history of cinema, so in this video I rank my Top 20 Best Western Villains of all time from classic Westerns like The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and High Noon, as well as lesser known Westerns like Godless and Hell On Wheels."

Thanks to Marc Reynard of Just Westerns for this entertaining rundown.

Sonja's Back To Make Your Solstice Wishes Come True

Main cover art by Francesco Mattina

Ace swords-and-sorcery scribe Torunn Grønbekk returns to the pages of Red Sonja for the Red Sonja Solstice Special, due out from Dynamite on December 15.

Join the She-Devil of Hyrkania in a solstice celebration that turns quite bloody, truth be told! Sonja, having come into some gold, is celebrating at a tavern. It is midwinter, and people everywhere are celebrating the holiday season - but the tranquility is shattered by a trip to a cursed village, with demons, slaughter and carnage in its wake!

Art for this one-shot comes courtesy of Edson Novaes, who illustrated the recent Red Sonja Noir: The Plunder & The Princess.

Variant cover art by Josephine Tomarchio

Body Horror Oozes Into The Streets of Bat'verse

DC Studios’ Clayface is a horror thriller from director James Watkins, starring Tom Rhys Harries in the title role of the cult favourite villain from Gotham’s rogues gallery.

Matt Hagen’s meteoric rise from Gotham street kid to Hollywood leading man is tragically cut short when a local crime boss’s actions leave him horribly disfigured. Abandoned by his team and with nothing left, Matt seeks out a cutting edge treatment that miraculously returns him to his former self… but also unexpectedly affects his grip on reality, spiralling him down a destructive path of all-consuming revenge.

The film also stars Naomi Ackie, David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan, as well as Nancy Carroll and Joshua James.

James Watkins directs from a screenplay by Mike Flanagan and Hossein Amini, story by Flanagan, based on characters from DC. The film is produced by Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn and Peter Safran, with Michael E. Uslan, Chantal Nong Vo, Lars P. Winther, Paul Ritchie, Rafi Crohn and Trevor Macy executive producing.

Clayface oozes into cinemas in North America on October 23, and internationally beginning 21 October.