They're Justified, And They're Ancient [Podcast Review: The Harbingers]

While investigating the relics of an ancient civilization, ambitious anthropologists and rivals Adam Blackwell (Andrés Enriquez) and Amy Stirling (Lauren Grace Thompson) make discoveries that bring magical powers back into the world. But when magical power collides with political and financial power, the results can be dangerous.

The Harbingers is a fictional podcast produced by Audacious Machine Creative. As of this month the first season is now complete, with all episodes available on Spotify or other services, and a second season in production for release later this year. 

There is a lot of Harbingers to enjoy. The first season is 16 episodes long, with episodes varying from 30 to 60 minutes in length. Production quality is excellent, as is the writing - the story is structured around a catastrophic event, with both protagonists telling their stories to the lawyer preparing them for a Congressional hearing. The stories begin in the highly competitive world of Harbinger academic study, but develop into globe-spanning journeys involving a Presidential campaign and a tech billionaire's quest for limitless energy. There is real thought about the implications of the different magical powers, how they might be used and how society might react to their existence.

There are a lot of twists and developments and the whole picture is revealed gradually over the season - or is it? While the first season has a satisfying plot and conclusion, there are still unanswered questions, untold chapters and unmet characters of the story. The ancient Harbinger civilization with its architecture, myths, languages and values is also imagined in great detail, even though we only learn about it from the fragments, relics and discoveries that have survived to the present day, and there is definitely more Harbinger history to uncover. I am really looking forward to season 2.

The performances from Enriquez, Thompson and all of the cast are outstanding, and as a result the friendships, relationships, drama and peril, and the tension between the two main characters all ring true. Highly recommended for fans of archaeology, magic, superpowers and lawyers. 

Tracks Of My Tears [Review: Honkai Star Rail]

I've always enjoyed RPGs and other games with a strong open-world component, where there's a sense that the world is much bigger than the game, that events are unfolding everywhere whether you are there or not, and where you can choose to follow the main game arc, explore, dive into the lore or the social buzz, or take a break and enjoy the scenery. Games such as Omicron:The Nomad Soul, Anachronox or Cloudpunk have been particular favourites.

Honkai Star Rail is another such game. It's a Chinese RPG, although very much in the JRPG style, and is indirectly linked to Genshin Impact and other Hoyoverse games through a kind of multiverse setting. The plot revolves around the hero, a character apparently created to contain a dangerous object called a Stellaron. Following the first missions, set on a giant space station, the hero joins the crew of the Astral Express on its interstellar mission to stop natural disasters caused by other Stellarons.

Like Anachronox and many role playing games, Star Rail involves turn-based combat, with your party of adventurers choosing whether to use their attacks, skills or ultimate moves. As the game goes on you can build up a larger group of characters so you can select which four suit a particular battle. I'm learning which characters work best together and how to activate certain characters' extra attacks or abilities.

It's also ridiculously complex - so far I've found at least six different ways to power-up your characters and develop their abilities. 

Characters follow the paths of Aeons (ancient god-like entities) - this acts a bit like a character class in D&D and decides some of their strengths and abilities. It is possible for characters to change path.

You can also power up your characters with individual experience points, Trailblaze experience points (whole team experience), Light Cones (an individual ability boost), Traces (a kind of tech tree for each character that can enhance their different skills and attacks), Relics (basically armour - masks, body armour, boots etc) and Eidolons (possibly recovered memories that, once earned, add to the character's stats). Light Cones and Relics can themselves be upgraded as well. There are also temporary boosts such as food items.

All clear?

Following the missions in the main story arc will bring you into combat against gradually more powerful enemies, but there are also plenty of non-combat missions. I was surprised to find that, having defeated the big enemy in the second major chapter of the story, I was then sent on a series of missions to listen to the new mayor give speeches, visit all of my newfound friends to say goodbye, and take selfies in all the locations I'd visited, before I could progress to the next chapter. Is this normal for computer games now?

There are also more side quests than you can shake a stick at. Characters in the game will call or text you, with conversations that often lead into invitations or errands, while simply exploring the various cities and talking to inhabitants can also lead into missions. There are daily missions and challenges too - it's actually quite overwhelming, but it does give that sense that you are part of a wider world. If you just want to fight monsters, whether to gain experience or materials for crafting, or just for fun, there are several different types of location where you can do this.

As the difficulty of the main story arc gradually increases I am increasingly finding that I have to abandon it, do a whole load of missions, fights, crafting and upgrading before I can return with stronger characters.

Star Rail is fairly child friendly. It's vague about death - fights take place in a kind of combat zone, and monsters often appear to be banished to some other universe rather than killed, while humans and other sentient characters are usually defeated rather than killed, even if they appear to be blown apart in the combat. There's a lot of friendship, but only hints of romance between any of the characters. 

The world of Star Rail is large, and it expands as you play - each chapter in the story arc is set in a completely new world or space station, each with its own cities or zones. Most of the time you are free to follow the plot missions or leave them behind, teleport freely between different locations and pursue other missions or activities. Each region is distinctive and there's plenty of interesting places to go.

Many aspects of Star Rail prioritize gameplay over realism. It is a game after all. For example, the ability to teleport anywhere, leave one mission behind and follow another, gives a great sense of freedom, but takes away a sense of urgency for the main story missions. It also means the Astral Express itself isn't required for travel, except at the start of each chapter when it brings you to a new location. You can also bring a line-up of any characters you have recruited into a battle - so they can be different from the characters actually present or involved in the mission. Each character has their own attack style and animations, from regular baseball bats, swords or spears to giant chickens and energy-blasting guitars. This is not hard sci-fi.

Star Rail has several play-to-play aspects. However I have been playing for free, without any in-game purchases, and so far I haven't felt disadvantaged or excluded.

A good test of an RPG (for me!) is whether the player warms to the characters and feels invested in their stories. Star Rail passes this test well, at least for several of the main playable characters and NPCs. Overall Star Rail is a fun open-world RPG with enough scope, depth and story for me to lose myself in it for a while longer.

Raising The Bear [Review: Winnie The Pooh: Blood And Honey 2]

Office Marlow: "F**k it, let's bounce."

Tigger: "That's my line!"

Although Christopher Robin has survived the horrors of his time in the Hundred Acre Wood, he has not escaped the nightmare. Not only has he seen his fiancée murdered and witnessed a series of traumatic killings, but he is now being blamed for the massacre, no-one believes his version of events, and even worse the story is being made into a film. And then the killings begin again.

Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey, released in 2023 and reviewed here, was a lot of fun, with plenty of action, gore and sacrilegious dismemberment of fond childhood memories. It was entertaining but never really rose above its super-low budget and amateur or student project vibe, and it felt rushed and messy in places. The 2024 Golden Raspberry Awards jury agreed with my take, awarding it Worst Movie, Worst Director, Worst Screenplay, Worst Remake/Rip-Off/Sequel and Worst Screen Combo. I guess they liked the music then.

Something strange quickly became apparent as I began to watch Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey 2. It's actually rather good. There's a step up in every aspect of the filmmaking - excellent camerawork, colouring, editing, a much stronger script, and some really good performances, adding up to a complete film. The conceit of the horror-film-within-a-horror-film is a deliberate and classy callout to the Scream movies, and there are plenty of other genre references to enjoy.

There are also smart backstories for both Christopher Robin and Pooh, leading to a climax and some shocking final revelations. Admittedly some of the backstory is revealed through dialogue, but if the first rule of moviemaking is "show don't tell", then the second rule is "if you must tell, get Simon Callow to do the telling."

And I am happy to report that all of this decent filmmaking does not detract from the gore, sacrilege and subversion of the first movie. Pooh and Piglet are now joined by Tigger and Owl. Tigger takes some time to get into his stride - it's only towards the end that he really gains bounce and earns his stripes. Owl on the other hand is marvellous - played by Marcus Massey in Hammer villain style with plenty of creepy monologues. The gory body effects, one of the strengths of the first movie, are multiplied to stomach-churning levels.

This is no Get Out or Babadook, but if it's not elevated horror it's still a horror movie that will satisfy die-hard horror fans. It also bodes well for the next batch of films in the Pooh cinematic universe - the Poohniverse. I am now looking forward to Bambi: The Reckoning, Peter Pan's Neverland Nightmare, Pinocchio: Unstrung and Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Bearing All [Reviews: Cocaine Bear and Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey]

While all the bear stuff is happening on all the social medias (#TeamBear) this is a good time to retrospectively review two bearsploitation movies released in 2023.

Cocaine Bear (2023), directed by Elizabeth Banks, is loosely based on a real incident in 1985, where a bear found and ate cocaine that had been dropped from a smuggler’s plane.

The movie tells the story of some tourists, a mother, daughter and friend, a park ranger and a wildlife campaigner, some wannabe criminals and some serious criminals who all converge on a forested national park. Into the mix is added the missing cocaine and the bear that finds it. In real life there is no evidence that the bear harmed anyone. In the movie this is not the case and there are several gory fatalities. However this is a character-driven story rather than a bloodbath for its own sake.

The bear is also a character. Early scenes show the effects of the drug – one minute the bear is aggressively focussed on hunting tourists, the next it is happily distracted by a butterfly. As the movie continues we learn a little more about the bear’s background and can empathise with it – this is particularly true of the final act.

Overall this is a unique, enjoyable movie with an excellent, witty and thoughtful script and great performances from all of the ensemble cast, and I would recommend it to fans of horror, comedy, action and bears.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Winnie-The-Pooh: Blood And Honey (2023), directed by Rhys Frake-Waterfield, is one of a new crop of copyrightsploitation movies taking advantage of the fact that many classic books are now out of copyright. Other recent examples of this genre include Mad Heidi (2022) and Mickey’s Mouse Trap (2024).

The entirely reasonable premise of this movie is that Winnie-The-Pooh and Piglet, abandoned by Christopher Robin when he grew up and went to medical school, have become violent, sadistic killers. They take revenge on CR and his fiancée Mary when they return to the Wood try to find CR’s childhood friends, but also go on an indiscriminate killing spree, attacking a group of students holidaying in a cabin. There is blood. Honey, too, but mostly blood to be fair.

The copyright-busting movie genre has its interesting quirks. It is A.A.Milne’s Winnie-The-Pooh books that have come out of copyright – the Disney movie version is still protected. So there is nothing to stop a filmmaker presenting Pooh as a serial killer, but he cannot legally be shown wearing a red T-shirt (instead he wears a redneck-style lumberjack shirt). To make it even clearer that this is the book Pooh not the Disney Pooh, the movie starts with an animated introduction very much in the style of the original E.H.Shepard illustrations.

The genre is also growing fast – there is a sequel, Blood And Honey 2, out this year, and further films in the Poohniverse or Twisted Childhood Universe are in the pipeline, including Poohniverse: Monsters Assemble which will feature Pooh alongside twisted literary versions of Bambi, Pinocchio and Peter Pan. Meanwhile the first version of Mickey Mouse, as seen in Steamboat Willie, is now unprotected hence Mickey’s Mouse Trap and several other movie and game projects.

Blood And Honey is a low-budget, low-expectations movie: viewers expecting the quality of script, plot, performance or production values of Cocaine Bear may be slightly disappointed in some ways. These unreasonably high demands from cruel, selfish moviegoers might also explain why this movie won five Golden Raspberries and hardly any Oscars. On the other hand this is a full-on, no-holes-barred gorefest. It’s probably the most violent Winnie-The-Pooh film ever - even more violent than A Blustery Day. And as an animator who myself, back in 2012, put swearing, drug-taking and generally badly behaved LEGO minifigs on screen here, I do appreciate there is a pleasure in the subversion of innocence.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Grow For Me [Review: Vesper]

Like literally all of the best films, Vesper begins with text explaining the apocalyptic future we are about to enter: one where biotechnology has gone rogue, destroying much of the world and much of humanity. Rich people live in distant citadels shielded from the bio threats while everyone else scrabbles around in the mud, relying on the citadels for terminator seeds.

Vesper is a young girl growing up in an abandoned farmhouse looking after her terminally ill father. They are hermits who refuse to join the collective run by her uncle, and Vesper ekes out an existence scavenging or trading for food and for the bacteria needed to keep the father alive, while studying bioengineering using materials she has stolen from an abandoned laboratory. Her life changes when a flying biomachine from the nearest citadel crashes, and she rescues its inhabitant, a strange, pale woman, and brings her home.

Watching an indie sci-fi film like Vesper was a welcome change from the Marveltsunami that has swept through cinema in recent years. Vesper’s forest setting and biological creations reminded me of another indie sci-fi movie, Prospect. Both feature a young lead character having to fend for themselves in a hostile world and amongst hostile adults, played by Sophie Thatcher in Prospect and Rafiella Chapman in Vesper. Neither pull their punches when it comes to pain, suffering and despair, and both use special effects sparingly and intelligently rather than simply flooding the screen with lightning bolts.

Along with the understated effects comes the understated villain, the uncle, played by Eddie Marsan. He’s creepy, selfish, deceitful and vicious when he needs to be, but he’s not angry with you – just disappointed. He’s as far from a Marvel pantomime supervillain as they come.

Score: Three perfectly bio-engineered stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Your Message Could Not Be Delivered [Review: You've Got Mail!]

 I have always cited Nora Ephron's You've Got Mail! as being the worst film of all time. But everyone deserves a second chance. I gave it a second viewing to see if I had been too harsh. TLDR: I had not.

I should say that I am quite tolerant of bad films in general. I am a fan of The Asylum's brand of cheap and cheerful mockbusters, and I even sat through most of Shark Exorcist before giving up. My problem with Shark Exorcist was not the poor script, acting, CGI or editing, but the fact that this is a movie about a shark possessed by a demon (which incidentally makes no difference whatsoever to its predator behaviour) and disappointingly not about a shark who is also an exorcist.

Also, despite my love of sci-fi and fantasy I am not opposed to the romantic comedy genre in principle. Brief Encounter, Breakfast At Tiffany's, Four Weddings, Pretty Woman and When Harry Met Sally... are all great films.

So why does You've Got Mail! bring out the same reaction for me as others have described when watching The Human Centipede: First Sequence? Let's consider the evidence:

• Everyone loves a goofy screwball romcom, right? Here's a goofy screwball romcom about a manipulative creep who gaslights a vulnerable adult. Cute!

• There is no character development. Both Kathleen and Joe are exactly the same people at the start and the end. They don't grow. They don't even learn that women can fake orgasms or overcome their fear of heights. Dramatic journey? More like an hour and twenty minutes on a roundabout.

• With one exception, all the cast appear to be half asleep, wandering through the scenes in a daze and delivering their lines on half-speed. Did Ephron have to drug them all to get them to participate? Or are they dosing themselves up to forget?

• With one exception, all the supporting characters are zero-dimensional. Their only point (Ha! Geometry joke!) is to distract from the dopiness of both lead characters.

• Above all else, this is a Nora Ephron film. Nora smegging Ephron! Ephron is a legendary writer and director, responsible for some truly great films, including When Harry Met Sally... one of the most well-loved films ever. Her uncredited work on Shark Exorcist aside, her writing always, always hits the mark - so this film's greatest crime, and greatest disappointment, is that it doesn't live up to the Ephron standard.

I challenged myself to find something positive to say about this terrible film. I found two things:

• It's a highly effective Internet safety video. I'm sure if You've Got Mail! was compulsory viewing at school, the next generation would happily abandon their TikToktagrams and their Snapcords and re-discover the delights of wooden spinning tops and Knock Down Ginger.

• One character in this movie only appears in three scenes but is a delight. She's quick-witted, dynamic, energetic, superficially evil but actually extremely thoughtful. Happily she makes her escape from the manipulative creep, but this means we barely get to know her. Personally I would rather see less of Creepy Joe or MPDG Kathleen and spend the whole hour and twenty minutes in the company of someone who makes coffee nervous.

I cannot give this truly awful piece of cinematic history any more than a mediocre three stars out of five.

Score: Three stars out of five.

All movies reviewed on The Sci-Fi Gene blog are awarded three stars out of five.

Bad Teacher [Review: Battle Royale]

A Japanese high school class runs riot, with all sorts of behaviour in classroom and corridors, and pupils bullying and even stabbing their teacher. But this is all in a near-future Japan where, following an economic collapse attributed to a failure of discipline in schools, a law has been passed allowing classes of misbehaving pupils to be kidnapped, sent to an island, given a weapon (or in some cases a harmless item such as a shield or a torch) and some basic supplies, and left to fight to the death, with only the last child standing allowed to return home. And who should appear as the sadistic director of this particular Battle Royale but that same stabbed teacher, glorying in revenge on his former antagonists.

Battle Royale is a Japanese movie released in 2000, starring Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda as students Shuya and Noriko, and Takeshi Kitano (the presenter of the original Takeshi's Castle) as teacher Kitano. It's a violent and darkly humorous horror movie, with frequent and graphic deaths. While it's clear that Shuya is the protagonist, most of the class are also given well-rounded characters and their alliances and duels are all played out, so the high number of characters can make the film a little hard to follow in places. Obviously this gets easier as the film progresses and more of the cast are eliminated.

Battle Royale isn't the only movie to portray gladiatorial games - of course Roman gladiators feature in Spartacus (1960) and Gladiator (also 2000), while Arena (1989) gives the concept a sci-fi twist. However there are a lot of similarities between Battle Royale and subsequent gladiatorial stories, particularly the Hunger Games books and films, and the recent Korean TV series Squid Game.

I enjoyed this movie although it does require a strong stomach and a pitch-black sense of humour. I would recommend it as an excellent revenge fantasy for any frustrated teacher. Three shuriken stars out of five.

Ghost In The Machine [Review: Host]

Housebound under lockdown conditions, Haley and her friends decide to use their weekly Zoom call to carry out an online séance. Haley (Haley Bishop) has hired a medium, Seylan (Seylan Baxter), to lead them in what will no doubt be a fun, entertaining evening without anything sinister or dangerous happening. What could possibly go wrong?

Host (2020) is a found-footage horror movie that takes place in real time during a Zoom call. It’s not in any way related to The Host (2013), the movie based on Stephenie Meyer’s alien parasite rom com novel reviewed here, or to Korean newt-based horror The Host (2006), reviewed here. Host is set during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic - and it was also filmed during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, during a period of lockdown. Cast and crew could not leave their own homes so had to set up equipment and film themselves at home, with director Rob Savage guiding them remotely. The concept of the Zoom séance is a clever way to make a film under these tough conditions.

Other aspects of the film add to the improvised feel – the cast all use their own names, and family members appear in cameo or supporting roles. The script makes good use of all the Zoom cliches we’ve grown to love tolerate over the past year – sound and vision glitches, people joining while mute, dodgy animated backgrounds, pyjamas and badly-timed Ocado deliveries. Acting is excellent, there’s a lot of humour, and there’s a good, gradual ramping up of tension leading to full-on catastrophe.

In a year where making any movie has been difficult, a crew have come together against the odds to release a new, low-budget, creepy and effective horror movie not unlike Paranormal Activity, reviewed here. In fact my only criticism of this movie is that it is a little too like Paranormal Activity, with one or two fright scenes almost borrowed wholesale. For this reason, although I really enjoyed Host, I am only giving it three stars.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

I'll Take The High Road [Review: Cloudpunk]

It's a rainy night in Nivalis. You're a recently arrived immigrant and a newly signed-up courier for the slightly illegal delivery company Cloudpunk, delivering parcels to customers around the city guided by the mysterious and melancholy Control. You're penniless and alone apart from your flute and your naive, excitable AI companion Camus the dog. And you have a flying car. It's a cheap pile of junk, handles terribly, and guzzles fuel, but it's still a flying car.

The star of adventure game Cloudpunk is the setting - Nivalis, a massive sprawling neon-infused megacity that you can explore freely in your HOVA or on foot. It's a huge voxellated environment, insanely detailed and full of character. The architecture is extraordinary, and it's alive with activity. HOVAs whip past you along the powered highways or take shortcuts between buildings, and the streets are full of strangers and robots - most minding their own business, but a few who will converse with you, leading to discoveries or side-quests. Even if there were no game element simply exploring the city would be an absolute pleasure. Cloudpunk is basically the game version of every flying car fantasy ever, particularly the neo-noir settings of the Blade Runner films, the Fifth Element or Revenge of the Sith, and it also reminded me strongly of other adventure games I've enjoyed - particularly Omicron: The Nomad Soul, and Anachronox, both of which also feature futuristic cities, free exploration and flying cars.

The main story is told through a series of missions usually taking you from a pickup point to a customer. Rania's conversations with her customers reveal the nature of Nivalis and of this future society, as well as clues leading to a mystery about the city's past. Your meetings with customers are like short stories - you get a brief glimpse of their personalities and lives before moving on to another story.

As a game Cloudpunk is easy. You don't have to learn the Nivalis equivalent of The Knowledge - nav points guide you through Nivalis to your destination. There aren't any time limits on the missions, and there don't seem to be any ways to die or lose - even your encounters with robot gang members and other unsavoury characters don't seem to turn violent. Most of the missions are pretty linear, although occasionally you are offered a moral choice in how you complete them. Fuel this costs money, and you don't earn much as a courier, so getting enough money to buy fuel and repair damage is a challenge, and you'll need to work very hard to upgrade your HOVA or pimp your apartment. Simply flying around the city will eventually use up all your cash, although there are a few alternative ways to make money, such as picking up abandoned items and selling them to merchants.

It's always interesting playing a non-violent game. Again comparing to Nomad Soul's beat-em-up and FPS sequences, they added challenge and peril to the game, but detracted from the story, and often caused frustration when I wanted to continue with the story, explore the setting or just enjoy the David Bowie soundtrack, not repeat the action sequence hundreds of times because it was slightly too hard. Those action sequences could have been removed without detracting from the game - as Cloudpunk proves. Cloudpunk also has a more modern outlook in all aspects of its' writing - Rania often finds herself challenging NPCs about their cultural assumptions and attitudes. And I have been playing for several hours and the plot has not lead me to either a red light district or a strip club - unlike every single other noir-inspired book, movie or game.

To sum it up, Cloudpunk is a beautiful, joyful world to explore, and it's an experience first and game second. While I should be delivering parcels non-stop, it's tempting and equally rewarding just to wander around immersing myself in the scenery and taking selfies.

You're on mute! [Review: Sleep Dealer]

Sleep Dealer is an indie science fiction movie made in 2008 and set mostly in Mexico. I first came across it when reading an interview with the director, Alex Rivera. I recently watched it online and I think it's a beautiful film, deserving a second lease of life in this era of Zoom remote working.

 Memo (Luis Fernando Pena) is a tech geek growing up in a farming village but dreaming of escape. When catastrophe strikes his family in the form of an aerial drone attack, Memo is forced to leave. He travels to Tijuana, along the way meeting city girl and aspiring writer Luz (Leonor Varela), gets mini-jack ports inserted painfully in his arms and back, and he's ready to get work in a "sleep dealer factory" where he can plug into the VR network and control a construction robot that could be working in another country.

This movie uses near-future sci-fi concepts to tell a very personal story about oppression, exploitation and the value of life. Remote working is not safe - thanks to dodgy electronics Memo runs the risk of blindness or injury every day he clocks in. His employers don't seem to be interested in health and safety and there's little he can do. But while labour is cheap, water is expensive - following the construction of a dam, the rivers around Memo's home village have dried up Jean de Florette style and the inhabitants pay to collect water from a commercially owned and heavily guarded reservoir.

The remote working theme is interesting as it becomes a metaphor for indirect oppression - while the privileged seem to be running the world, the means of oppression are remote controlled checkpoints with machine guns, and their operators are likely to be other low-paid workers. The drone pilot is revealed to be a young American with a Mexican immigrant background and perhaps it is this connection that leads him to seek information about Memo, leading in turn to a surprising finale with elements of Star Wars or Dambusters.

There's also a Scanner Darkly-esque theme about the many aspects of surveillance: Memo and his brother watch the drone attack unfold on a live TV programme, recognizing their own village as the drone approaches its target. Luz pays her bills by literally selling her memories online, including her memories of meeting Memo - a career choice that does not bode well for their relationship.

Sleep Dealer is accidentally prophetic. In addition to the themes of remote working and social media, it's the second indie film I've seen that predicts a US-Mexico border wall. The other is Gareth Edwards debut Monsters. In this case the wall has prevented migrants coming to work in the US, and as a result the low-paid migrant workforce has become an equally low paid remote working workforce, migrating to work digitally all over the world while remaining plugged in to their factories.

As other reviewers at the time of release noted, a weaker aspect of this movie is the CGI for the aerial drones and the construction robots. While it's good enough to tell the story it's not quite convincing as real. In contrast, the practical special effects are excellent. I squirmed in empathic pain when Memo had his nodes inserted - that's one memory I won't be downloading. And the acting from all the lead characters is superb, with total commitment to role.

Overall this is a likeable and thoughtful indie sci-fi and well worth the three stars out of five I'm giving it.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Shake, Rattle and Roll [Review: Shivers]

Along with Nakatomi Plaza, Peach Trees, Wyndham Tower and the unnamed High-Rise, I have unfortunately had to add Starliner Towers to the list of high-rise buildings to avoid. It's a shame - the period architecture, the peaceful island location and the easy accessibility of the on-site swimming pool, supermarket, medical and dentist's surgeries and parasitology research lab all make it so tempting...

Shivers (also released as The Parasite Murders and They Came From Within) is a horror movie from 1975 directed by the emerging David Cronenberg and set in a tower block in Montreal. Dr. St-Luc is the resident MD tending to the inhabitants who have started to develop odd stomach complaints that are definitely not related in any way to his colleague's work on a parasitic organism designed to replace organ transplants. He is asked to investigate a suicide-homicide that took place in one of the apartments, and discovers a link to the parasites - and the possibility they have already been spread to several other residents through their fun and games.

Taking Shivers out of the context of other films, it's an uneven quality experience and mainly of interest as it shows an early Cronenberg still coming into his powers. Acting is hit and miss, sometimes sincere and convincing, sometimes melodramatic or wooden. Scenes of violence, sex or sexual violence are also variable. A few of these scenes are horribly effective, including the homicide-suicide where an older and sinister man appears to be attacking a schoolgirl, and clips of their fight are juxtaposed with a new couple being shown around the luxury tower-block. 

Other effective horror scenes betray the director's influence by his contemporary George A. Romero as the residents, turned into sex-crazed demi-zombies by the parasite, try to corner St-Luc and nurse Forsythe.  The parasite creature is fun but doesn't ever appear convincing or threatening itself - the most effective creepy scenes are the ones that don't show the creature at all but just its' trails of blood. However the legacy of this film is the continued popularity of parasite-horror, including such classics as Alien (1979), The Thing (1984), Species (1995), The Faculty (1998), the Cronenberg-inspired Slither (2008) and so on. Meanwhile Cronenberg grows in filmmaking ability and his own later films such as Videodrome and eXistenz develop the bio-horror theme further, and the high-rise genre also continues to develop - High-Rise (2015) is essentially a re-make of Shivers without the parasites.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

[Review: Thin Air]

Mars - a planet of factions. There are the Western and Chinese settlements, the corporations, the criminal underworld, the political groupings, the various military, police or security organizations... and in the middle of it all is Earthman Hakan Veil, once a unique kind of spaceship security officer, now stranded on Mars, trying to live day to day and find a way to get back to Earth. But someone with Veil's abilities can't stay hidden for ever.

Thin Air is a novel by Richard Morgan. It's unrelated to the Altered Carbon series, and takes place in the same setting as Thirteen (originally published under the title "Black Man") - a few centuries into the future, the Solar System explored and settled, genetic engineering is commonplace, but despite this humans are still as quarrelsome and pugnatious as ever, and boy bands are still a thing.

Veil was engineered from early childhood to be the ultimate deterrent on a spaceship - a hibernating one-man army to be thawed out as a last resort in the event of piracy or mutiny. His abilities come at a high cost - he's a hibernoid, only able to remain awake for nine months before he must find a hibernation chamber, and while "running hot" he has little control over his aggression and lust. Veil is also a relic - the hibernoids have been consigned to history, at least officially. 

Veil's story arc and character are also pleasantly retro. He's the wounded, traumatized tough ex-soldier a la Cormoran Strike and any number of ex-military private investigators, or the special agent with superhuman abilities a la James Bond. The novel reads like a Bond film, with plenty of supervillains, gadgets and femmes fatale to enjoy. At least in Veil's case his ability to handle weapons, vehicles and people is explained by his genetic engineering and AI enhancements - the least credible aspect of the Bond canon is the idea of a competent British civil servant.

High School Musical Of The Dead [Review: Anna and the Apocalypse]

Anna (Ella Hunt) dreads breaking the news to her father that she doesn’t want to go to University. Her father is still grieving for the death of her mother. Her best friend John is “secretly” in love with her, while their other friends Chris and Steph are tryin

g to find their voices as student filmmaker and journalist.

Anna and the Apocalypse is easily the best of the High School Musicals. Disney’s decision not to include zombies in any of the others was clearly a mistake. It’s not too serious – more Shaun than Dawn, but still with plenty of bite, and just enough blue language and young-adult themes for a Christmas movie. Zombies themselves make a poor movie enemy. They’re slow and weak except in numbers, so there always needs to be a human threat, in this case the melodramatic deputy head Mr. Savage (Paul Kaye).

The dance numbers are fun and the songs are good, very much in the HSM / Grade 4 Keyboard style. A highlight is Turning My Life Around, a bright, joyful number as Anna dances through town oblivious to the horrors around her.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Trailer:

Singalong version of Turning My Life Around

Bring On The Wall [Review: Deep Dark]

Hermann (Sean McGrath) is a Failed Artist TM trying to express himself through the oft-neglected medium of hanging mobiles and trying to win the attention of gallery owner Devorah Klein (Anne Sorce). Hermann’s mother sends him to his rich uncle in search of a Real Job TM – but instead his uncle sends him to a dilapidated apartment to use as an artist’s retreat until he finds inspiration. So nothing weird so far. However…

In the apartment, Hermann finds a mysterious hole in the wall. Pulling a thread from the hole leads to communication with a strange entity – one who has the power to help Hermann make his mobiles into successful art. And all the poor lonely entity wants in return is Hermann’s company. What could possibly go wrong? Surely there won’t be a terrible price to pay for all that success…

Deep Dark is a lo-fi horror movie from 2015, directed by Michael Medaglia, with shades of Being John Malkovich and Little Shop Of Horrors, but with a few more WTF scenes than either.

Deep Dark also has a wicked sense of humour and a fair helping of blood, guts and other disgusting stuff, although it’s also strangely restrained at times. Not everything makes sense. For example the opening scene features a man removing a bathplug from his abdomen. It’s a great horror scene, really inventive, well done! but I have no idea how this fits in with any of the rest of the film. However for the most part this is a well plotted movie with a strong subtext. The relationship between Hermann and his somewhat unusual muse is a metaphor for the pain of the creative process. At least I hope it's a metaphor. If all artists actually have to do this then I have more respect for them than ever.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

Midsommar Murders [Review: Midsommar]

Dani, recovering from grief after the deaths of her sister and parents, and her boyfriend Christian who wants to break up but doesn't think this is the right time, travel to Sweden with some friends to attend the midsummer celebration at a pagan commune, the Harga. They all have a happy, healing and relaxing time, there's nothing sinister about this secret community or their religious festival and there will definitely be no murders or mutilations *innocent face*.

Sorry. Midsommar is a bleak and bloody horror film about a secret commune that appears very friendly and social at the start, but it's not long before Dani and Christian are shocked to witness a ceremony where two older members of the community take their own lives by jumping from a cliff. From here the weirdness builds up quickly. The festival includes other rituals including a version of Maypole dancing as an endurance competition and a May Queen coronation, all building towards some sort of final ritual. Meanwhile there's a mysterious book, mysterious goings on at night, mysterious disappearances, mysterious glances, mysterious food and drink, mysterious lack of mobile phone signals and mysterious inability to leave the commune. As is often the case in this genre of films, this is not going to end well.

Midsommar is directed by Ari Aster, also responsible for the unsettling horror film Hereditary. Dani is played by Florence Pugh. I would describe Pugh's performances in Lady Macbeth and in this film as intense and unforgettable. Possibly because the cast is large, there are few other stand-out performances.

Horror based on pagan culture (or misunderstandings of it) is a well-developed subgenre. In some ways Midsommar is a Swedish take on The Wicker Man and there are many similarities between the films. However while Police Sergeant Howie is a sane man (if a bit of a prude) cast into an insane world, Dani is different. She's already traumatized before she arrives at the Harga and, while she is further traumatized by what she sees, she responds in unexpected ways to her situation and becomes stronger, calmer and more open to the strange ceremonies.

A horrific three stars out of five.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

They're made out of meat! [Review: Tender Is The Flesh]

The spread of a deadly virus leads to the elimination of livestock and animals in general - and to the creeping legalization of cannibalism and a future in which humans are farmed, bred and slaughtered for meat on an industrial scale.

Tender Is The Flesh (Cadaver Exquisito) is a dystopian novel by Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica. It's told from the viewpoint of Marcos, a senior manager in the "special meat" industry with a role in every stage of the lives of the "heads." Motivated by a need to pay for his father's nursing home and recoiling from his own tragedies and the breakdown of his marriage, Marcos embodies the double-think of the time, taking pride in his expertise and business success while still  aware that he is participating in an atrocity.

There are plenty of bleak, horrific novels in the dystopia genre - not least the torture-heavy 1984 and the misogynistic violence of The Handmaid's Tale or A Walk To The End Of The World. I may have become a little desensitized to literary violence but I rarely read a book that truly horrifies me - Tender Is The Flesh is a rare example of writing that stopped me in my tracks several times, even though I was still compelled to finish reading it. 

It's clear that Bazterrica has far too much time on her hands and has spent much of it figuring out just how modern intensive livestock farming could be modified to farm humans, and all the ways that those on the right side of the electric fences might maintain the sense of denial, from the euphemisms such as "heads" and "special meat" to the scientific "evidence" presented against vegetable diets, to the legal structures protecting and regulating the process, to the removal of vocal cords from farmed humans to prevent them screaming or communicating. The detailed descriptions are shocking, particularly the chapter about 30% of the way through the novel where two job applicants are taken on a tour of the slaughterhouse. And there's still time for interesting subplots - the inhabitants of an abandoned zoo, and the implications that fear of infected bird droppings might be a conspiracy promoted by the umbrella industry.

There's an obvious between-the-lines link to ethical veganism - for those of us who eat meat, are we acting on good evidence that, say, cows are not conscious beings, or are we taking that view in order to make ourselves feel better? Is it our IQ that distinguishes us from the animals - and if so would it be OK to eat a human with lower IQ than a cow?* And what of the Ameglian Major Cow, served at the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe and other fine intergalactic establishments - an artificially created, sentient creature genetically programmed to offer itself up to be eaten on an entirely voluntary, consensual basis. Is that OK?**

But this novel speaks to human-on-human mistreatment too - it's about how humans dehumanize other humans in order to justify tribalism, slavery, racism, misogyny, genocide and so on, and how we give ourselves license to act in this way.

Humanity is broken in this novel - symbolised by Marcos' father, a livestock farmer whose dementia was apparently brought on following the "Transition" to human meat. Marcos and many of his generation are fully aware of the identity of "human meat" - it's an unspoken universal truth rather than a Soylent Green mystery - and they are living with the hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance of treating the "heads" as both human and inhuman, in turn distorting their humanity and morality. Some go for complete "We don't eat people in this house" denial, while others embrace the Transition, such as the game hunters who are equally happy aiming at purpose-bred humans or celebrities gambling their debts on a life-or-death run, or the Scavengers who kill and eat at any opportunity. Marcos is given a chance of a kind of redemption - an opportunity to re-integrate his divided world; the actual outcome reflects just how broken we all are.

*No.
**Still no.

It only takes a minute girl [Review: Downsizing]

A Norwegian scientist has found a way to shrink humans to approximately 12 inches in height, meaning they have a much smaller environmental impact and incidentally can live a life of luxury on the cheap – but it’s irreversible. Occupational therapist Matt Damon and his wife Kristen Wiig are the couple trying to decide whether moving to a small community is an opportunity worth taking.

There are plenty of movies about shrinking people –Fantastic Voyage, InnerSpace, Honey I Shrunk The Kids, and of course the various appearances of Ant-Man. In all of these movies the shrinking effect is reversible and the tone tends to be a mixture of action and comedy.

Downsizing takes a different approach, the key to which is the one-way procedure which gives miniaturization a whole new meaning. This is highlighted by the shrinking process – no instantaneous shrink ray or Ant-Man suit but a prolonged and demeaning medical procedure involving removal of hair and teeth and injection with a special shrinking medicine before being anaesthetised and locked naked in a giant microwave.

It’s a little hard to describe exactly what kind of movie this is. It’s not an action movie or a thriller, and it’s not a comedy either, although there’s the occasional comic moment. There's some romance, so at least we can be sure that size isn't everything, but it's not really a romantic comedy either. Perhaps it’s a little confused – too many subplots with messages about environmental catastrophe, race, immigration, poverty, social inequality and division.

However this is first and foremost a science fiction story in the John W. Campbell sense – the downsizing is the only fantasy element, and the movie takes this concept very seriously and explores the consequences, good and bad, of this new technology and its impact on the world. The result is a thoughtful movie about the challenge of taking an irreversible step into the unknown, and how this affects relationships in which some decisions are reversible.

While most of the supporting cast are poorly developed to the point of stereotyping – flamboyant European party animal, immigrant cleaner with heart of gold and so on, Matt Damon’s lead character is the exception – he’s got enough of a backstory and personality to convince that he is not a hero or villain but a likeable Philip Dick-style everyman character trying to muddle through.

Downsizing is a B-movie, and it’s disappointing in places but occasionally thoughtful or touching. It’s been mis-promoted as a comedy in the trailers when it would be better described as a drama. I found enough positives to merit the highly coveted Sci-Fi Gene three-star rating.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars
All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars.

The Empire Strikes Flatpack [Review: Aniara]

The space cruise ship Aniara begins its three-month mission to bring thousands of moderately rich Earthlings to Mars, leaving behind an environmental catastrophe. Amongst the passengers is MR (Emelie Jonsson), a technician responsible for tending to MIMA, an AI that can give the colonists soothing visions of Earth before the disaster. But shortly after departure a collision leaves the Aniara drifting off course with no engine, challenging Captain Chefone (Arvin Kananian) and his crew to try to find a solution and keep the passengers happy.

Aniara is a Swedish-Danish movie – and you can tell this as it takes place on the decks of a rectangular cruise ship clearly designed and built by the Ikea-Lego Corporation (Assemble Your Own Better Worlds). There’s some clever low-budget sci-fi filmmaking – the interior of the Aniara has been filmed in airports, shopping malls and hotels, or perhaps airport shopping malls and hotels. CGI is sparsely used, basic but effective, mainly limited to exterior views of the drifting Aniara.

The Aniara. Slightly rippled with a flat underside.

Aniara is based on the famous epic poem by Swedish Nobel prize winner Harry Martinson, which as well as this 2018 movie has also inspired an opera and several obscure albums in musical styles from jazz to metal. The original poem incidentally is subject to disgraceful anti-English discrimination. While the Swedish, French, Japanese and Spanish editions are all on Kindle for under £14, Sjoberg’s English translation starts at £117 in paperback only. And this isn’t even the most depressing thing about the poem.

Emelie Jonsson carries the film, playing MR as a character determined to be happy and optimistic, to persevere and to see the best in others. She believes in love and kindness. She’s perhaps a symbol for the human spirit. While other characters, such as MR’s roommate the astronomer, swing constantly between positivity and negativity, it takes a lot to bring MR down, and when this happens it is painful.

Beautiful but misleading poster for Aniara. While the woman in the centre is MR, the main character in the film, she generally looks happier than this. However she does occasionally look over her shoulder. The spaceship in the foreground is not the Aniara and indeed is never seen in the movie, and I don't recognize the coridoor behind MR's head either.

I loved the economical and atmospheric setting, and the contrast between MR’s optimistic naïveté and the growing despair of the Aniara society. Will hope triumph over darkness? I won’t give away the ending but I repeat, this is a Swedish-Danish movie. The movie is divided into years of the voyage, with each year bringing new, sinister developments. It’s bleak – only three years into the voyage there appears to be a line-dancing revival, and things go downhill fast from there. The film ends not with a traditional Hollywood bang but an indie Scandinavian whimper, which is in keeping with the tone and story but may disappoint some.

Aniara is a deliciously dark indie sci-fi drifting in the direction of three stars.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars

Meet The Parents [Review: Get Out]

Photographer Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) is travelling with his girlfriend Rose (Alison Williams) to meet her parents for the first time, and is anxious about how they will react to an interracial relationship. On arrival he is greeted warmly and his fears appear groundless - but the parents have their own eccentricities, and the more he gets to know the Armitage family, the more he becomes convinced that there is something strange and sinister afoot at their household.

Get Out is a well-received horror movie from 2017, directed by Jordan Peele. It has won several awards including the Oscar for best screenplay - and well deserved. This is a clever film. The theme of racial intolerance and stereotyping is explored intelligently to play all sorts of psychological games with the audience, while subtle clues are incepted to pave the way for a horror twist in the final act. The movie opens with a subversion of a stereotype - a black person becoming increasingly nervous as he walks through a white neighbourhood, and proceeds to a fairly brutal kidnapping - this scene signals from the start that this is a horror movie, as otherwise the build-up of tension in the first act is so restrained that you might forget this and think you are watching some other kind of drama. There is a challenge in a film like this - if you make racism the main theme throughout, how do you come up with a horror twist that's even more horrific at the end? I don't want to spoil the movie, so all I can say is that this goal is achieved.

There's little to criticise here. In addition to the script, the performances are excellent and the setting deeply atmospheric. There are one or two tiny plot holes, including an escapology feat that I still haven't figured out, and a completely superfluous and ill-advised use of a candle, but that's about it.

Meeting the parents is a terrifying concept in itself, explored in depth in the films Meet The Parents (2000) and Meet The Fockers (2004). These films are sometimes misclassified as comedies rather than psychological thrillers. They are however enjoyable, unlike the all-time worst meet-the-parents movie, Guess Who's Coming To Dinner (1968). I have watched this double-Oscar-winning film to spare you the pain of doing so - its' excruciating to watch in the 21st century, even knowing that it was progressive and well-meaning back in the day, and exploration of racial issues is clumsy, a million miles away from Peele's brilliant script.

Get Out succeeds on all levels. A truly horrific three stars out of five.

Score: 3 out of 5 stars

All movies reviewed on the Sci-Fi Gene blog are given a score of 3 out of 5 stars