Feature Category: Article

Mark Worgan | THE UNOFFICIAL MASTER ANNUAL

STARBURST chats to the Mark Worgan, the brains behind the unofficial DOCTOR WHO annuals that have gone down well with fans, about the latest addition focusing on everyone’s favourite archvillain…

In 1971, with Jon Pertwee having established his credentials as the third Doctor in the first colour series of Doctor Who the year before, producer Barry Letts and his script editor Terrance Dicks decided to spice the series up even further by introducing a new recurring nemesis for the timeless Time Lord. They felt that if the Doctor was now a character as established in British culture as the legendary Sherlock Holmes, then it was time he had his own ‘Professor Moriarty’. He needed an enemy whose intellect was in many ways a match for the Doctor himself – even though Holmes’ ‘Napoleon of Crime’ only actually appeared in two of Conan Doyle’s stories chronicling the adventures of the Great Detective. The Master was to prove to be considerably more resilient. Portrayed initially by the urbane London-born actor Roger Delgado – complete with demonic salt and pepper goatee beard – the original Master – was a suave and sophisticated opponent for Pertwee’s dashing all-action Doctor. “I am known as The Master, universally” as he tells the first unfortunate victim of his despicable hypnotic abilities. Delgado’s Master was equally at home running a plastics factory as a cover for an alien invasion as he was hiding in plain sight as a vicar in a quaint English village, or masquerading as a space peacekeeper in the distant future. Delgado continued to play the character until his tragic death in 1973 and, after a respectful period, future production teams would revisit this iconic character who has appeared again and again in various increasingly hysterical incarnations. Plus like the Doctor, he has taken a female form more recently. The character even turned up in the most recent series of Doctor Who, with Sacha Dhawan delivering a tour de force performance as a maniac Master eaten away by his hatred for his bitterest enemy. That and, as we now know, the secrets he has discovered about the history of his own people the Time Lords and the Doctor herself.

Many lives, many terrible, unspeakable plots and plans. But for most Doctor Who fans, the original Master is still the definitive incarnation of the Doctor’s most persistent foe and it’s this embodiment of the character that is celebrated in The Master Annual, the latest book from Terraqueous Distributors. The publication turns back the clock to the 1970s and gives us an idea what the Master might have been up to when his every move wasn’t being confounded by the Doctor and his chums at UNIT. A couple of years ago, Terraqueous set out to fill in that infuriating gap in Doctor Who collectors’ run of classic story annuals published by World Distributors from the 1960s to the 1980s by releasing the Unofficial Doctor Who Annual 1972. Last year, they picked up the mantle from World, whose run of annuals ended in 1986, by publishing the Unofficial 1987 Annual featuring Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor. Fans might have been expecting the next annual to feature Sylvester McCoy’s Seventh Doctor, but Terraqueus publisher Mark Worgan (who we spoke to back in Issue 456) had other plans. “I just loved the idea of doing a Doctor-less annual next,” Mark told us. “What could be more thrilling than exploring the Doctor’s universe, without having the Doctor there to save the day? And what better tour guide than the Master himself? The Master is unique, not many villains who face off against the main character are adored. And if the tables were ever turned, and the Master was victorious every now and then – I honestly believe the viewer would cheer. When a beloved villain is repeatedly defeated, he almost becomes the underdog. And now we get to see the Master come out on top. I decided to do the Master annual because on-screen his plans were always squashed by the Doctor. The Doctor is the hero and that’s how it should be. And when it came to the Daleks or Cybermen, the Doctor would defeat them too, of course. However, those enemies had an on-screen narrative and the viewer is told how feared the Daleks and Cybermen are across the universe because when the Doctor wasn’t around, whole planets and civilisations were destroyed by them. But for the Master, there was no such narration. And I thought there should be.”

The real challenge, moving forward, was to put together stories that depicted an established ‘bad guy’ as ‘the hero’ in his own adventures. “I was really concerned about putting together a ‘children’s’ annual where the main character was well known for being ruthless and would kill anyone or any being that got in the way of his plans,” explains Mark. “It was essential to put some guidelines into place. For instance, I wouldn’t allow any stories to have any form of cruelty or torture. I knew people would want to go dark, and that really isn’t the Master. The Master has a lot of charm and cunning, he knows how to choose his battles. You don’t develop that kind of wisdom by smashing everything in sight. I wanted to explore just how successful the Master would be in his plans, without having the Doctor there to ruin things for him. And in the Unofficial Master Annual, we get to see just how successful he can be and it’s wonderful. Because sometimes, without it being intentional, and only because it suits his current scheme – he can be one heck of a hero. To that end, I didn’t want a collection of stories full of different characters each defeating the Master and his plans. This is the Master’s Annual and the Master, without the Doctor around – always wins. And if it suits his current agenda, he will be ‘the hero’. The stories we have in the annual have been carefully selected and I guarantee the reader is going to be cheering the Master on.”

Like the Doctor, the Master has endured numerous physical changes since he first appeared in 1971, but the Unofficial Annual was always destined to focus on the classic Delgado incarnation. “I did at first consider having various incarnations of the Master feature in the annual,” reveals Mark. “But I wanted to stay true to one Master at a time. Although I would love to do a Missy annual, with the cover done in the style of the old ‘70s Misty annuals (this was a well-known girl’s horror/supernatural annual and comic). If Michelle Gomez [who played Missy] writes a little foreword for it, then I’ll drop anything I’m working on to make it happen!”

Fans of the previous Unofficial Books will have been impressed by the extraordinarily high standard both of the written content and the often stunning, evocative artwork. The Master’s own book certainly won’t be letting the side down with a thrilling variety of stories and the same high standard of illustration. “We have stories based on medieval worlds; stories based in the past and in the future,” Mark told us. “There are stories where the Master faces off against other renegade Time Lords. There are tentacled monsters, cool ‘60s spies, robot conductors. And we have the seriously cute Tarkan species. There’s plenty of good quality content.”

Mark continues by enthusing about the contributors, “We have some returning talent providing the art of course; we’ve snagged Alister Pearson again. There isn’t a Who fan around who hasn’t owned a Doctor Who novel or VHS with Alister’s artwork on the cover – and besides being a wonderful artist, he’s a great guy too. There’s also SMUZZ, an award-winning British science fiction, fantasy, and political illustrator and cartoonist best known for his work on the magazine 2000 AD. We also have Paul Cooke, who has done the artwork for the cover of the Master Annual as well as illustrating some stories. When I had the idea for this, one thing that stuck in my mind, was that the cover had to say ‘The Doctor has gone, the universe is no longer safe’. So this was to be the Master’s first annual, so what better place to start than doing a homage to the Doctor’s very first annual, and then completely remove the Doctor – he’s gone, the Master is the man in charge now. So I sent Paul a mockup I’d been working on for a few weeks of the cover, he instantly caught the vision of what I wanted to do and produced this amazing homage. We also have Andy Walker, who was one of the illustrators who worked on the official 2006 Doctor Who Annual. We also have other artists such as Arfon Jones, Richard Young, Malcolm Orr, and many more… and they’re all great, brilliant guys! One person I must mention is Rob Nisbet he has done a fantastic job of proofreading every single story and the annual would not have been possible without his efforts.”

With the Unofficial 1972 and 1987 Annuals having gone down well with nostalgic fans, there’s clearly an audience hungry for further volumes. “The fans seem to have taken them to their hearts,” says Mark. “They love the quality of the stories and the artwork. I get a huge kick when people upload photos of their annual collection, and there between the 1971 and 1973 Word Distributor books, and after the 1986 annual, are the Terraqueous Distributors 1972 and 1987 annuals – that’s pretty cool. But these books are done out of love and there is no 9 to 5 working structure. The contributors love doing these books, but they also have real jobs and lives that demand their attention. It’s all down to these talented people who send me stories and illustrations – that’s what motivates me personally. I also have Asperger’s, which I am told plays a huge part in my obsession with the show. And people with Asperger’s have a pretty rough time, coping with day to day things. Doing these books are a great help to me personally, but we’ve now done three annuals in the space of 12 months and this kind of turnaround can’t be expected all the time. But as long as people keep loving the annuals, we will keep producing them. I have spoken with Alister Pearson about a possible Seventh Doctor annual and I’m very keen to do that. I would certainly like to do another Master annual. When the two previous annuals were released, people were asking “What’s next?” This time, once the Master annual is released, people are going to be asking ‘can we have another Master annual?’ and I’ll say yes, there will definitely be another Master annual in the future.”

THE UNOFFICIAL MASTER ANNUAL is available now from Lulu. For more and news of future publications, visit the Terraqueus Distributors’ Facebook Page.

Daniel Roebuck | STAR WARS JEDI: FALLEN ORDER

We sit down with actor DANIEL ROEBUCK to talk about his experience working on one of our favourite video games in recent years, the now-classic STAR WARS JEDI: FALLEN ORDER….

STARBURST: Fallen Order was in development since 2014, what can you remember about first getting involved?

Daniel Roebuck: I went to audition for a video game called Rowboat, which was their fake title. I play a four foot tall, four armed, Lateron, a species that’s never been in Star Wars before. One of the audition scenes was the scene where I apologised for almost getting crew killed. So at that time I didn’t know that I was four foot tall, or that I had four arms. I was just playing the guy like the Ernest Borgnine from all of those great movies from the sixties and seventies. He was always such an enthusiastic guy. Anyway, I was doing my Ernest take, and the performance director Tom Keegan graciously liked what I was doing. He said “Do it again, but instead of saying Templar Knights, say Jedi Knights” and that’s the moment when I knew that I was auditioning for Star Wars.

That must have been an exciting moment! How much of Star Wars fan were you before this point?

I’m 56, so in 1977, when the movie came out, I was thirteen, maybe fourteen. As far as I was concerned it was directed right at me. I know there were younger and older people in the audience, but doesn’t it seem like it’s a movie that’s made for a fourteen-year-old boy! The adventure, the swashbuckling. I grew up with Flash Gordon and all of the tropes that they kind of adapted to make Star Wars. I loved every second of it.

How did you go about getting ready for the role of Greez Dritus? Were there any particular acting influences that you looked at within the process maybe?

We started rehearsing it, and we shot it like a movie. It’s not vocal capture with us alone in a booth, although there were some lines that we recorded separately. So, for a lot of the performances we acted together. I’m a tall guy, and I was incorrectly trying to make Greez small. I was not feeling good about it, and the director and I had a conversation about it on the phone. I said “I’m going to work on it, I’ll figure it out!” Then I had an epiphany, little guys don’t act like little guys, they act like big guys. Let’s use a guy like Joe Pesci as an example, he doesn’t see himself as little. He’s an excellent actor, and you have a sense of him being larger than life. That’s when I realised that it wasn’t about being small, it’s about being the tallest Lateron on the planet. Even though I’m short on the other planet. So yeah, Pesci was one influence.

Were there any other moments during those very early days that really stood out?

We were all at a read through – Debra [Wilson], Cameron [Monaghan], Tina [Ivlev], and Elizabeth [Grullon] – we were all looking around going “What the hell is this?” they started showing us what a certain planet looked like, and what Mantis, the ship, looked like. Then they said “Here’s what Greez Dritus looks like!” and I was like “What?!” [laughs]. That’s the only thing they showed me, that one picture. We were all pinching ourselves. Cameron had a bit more knowledge than the rest of us obviously, as they’d been working to get him in there, and I’m sure they had to pitch to him, to be the main character. It was just extraordinary. We were over at EA’s office in Los Angeles, and I was so taken back by the multi-national and youthful appearance of all of the people who were writing and directing. Some were my age, but most of them were a lot younger. They were so enthusiastic, and they had been working for four years before we sat down with them. So I’m sure that they were excited to have the actors, as they were the last thing that they added. They probably put in visual place-holders until we were there. Then we come in, and filmed it. There’s multiple directors – you’ve got Stig Asmussen as the director of the game and there was Aaron Contreras, the story director, to name a few. I’d worked with Tom Keegan before on Dead Rising 3, and he was the person that we worked with directly, as he was the performance capture director. They were just all such great guys. I give Tom a lot of credit for how great the performances are in Fallen Order. They wrote us great characters, but in the context they gave us leeway to really expand and explore them, and ad-lib a little. You throw stuff in that felt right. Then we’d get done shooting it, and turn and look at the George Lucas representative, who was sitting in the studio with us, 100% of the time. We’d see if they were up for it, or no. If they were smiling, I’d be like “Yes! I got an ad-lib into Star Wars!”

For those readers that haven’t played the game just yet, can you tell them about your character Greez Dritus? Who is he, and how does he fit into the game?

Greez is the star of the game! That’s a lie of course [laughs]. In the stock of Star Wars characters, there’s got to be someone that’s a little grumpy or reticent and that’s the role that Greez plays. However, the genius of the writing in this game, is if that’s all he is, then you’ll really appreciate where he goes in the story. When the player plays as Cal Kestis, they journey from planet to planet to planet, on the Mantis, the ship that I fly. I fly, Greez flies. I had to sit in the plastic ship and press the cardboard buttons, so I flew it too! We’re just part of the journey. The player plays as Cal, and we’re his support team. Cere Junda is expertly played by Debra Wilson, such a great actress. Then he’s got a foe in The Second Sister, Elizabeth Grullon. Also, Tina Ivlev who plays Nightsister Merrin, she’s great.

As part of the three main core trio, what was it like to work alongside Cameron and Debra?

Its strength was that we all had a different speciality. That’s my perception. I would doubt that either of them have done as much theatre as I have, and I haven’t done as much comedy as Debra has. Cameron, is essentially a TV star, but should really be a movie star. What really impressed me about Cameron was that he didn’t just play Cal, he was a very good link for all of us. Cameron had a great knowledge of gameplay, which I have no knowledge of. He always kind of knew where we were going. He was the real connection in regards to where we were in the cannon, where we sit. I believe that Debra Wilson is really the heart of the trio. She’s a generous, giving person, and she was that for all of us while we were filming. I really think that I was the joke guy. Here’s something interesting for you: the main characters are human, but I am, and always would be a cartoon. Even if it was in the Star Wars movies, or The Mandalorian, I would always be a CGI character. While working on make-up and prosthetics over the years I learnt a lesson from Roddy McDowall, He talked about how they had to act through the make-up in the original Planet of the Apes, because when they were doing it initially the masks weren’t moving. Then they realised that they had to really push their facial expressions. I do believe that I did that too, and I think successfully. The character has to respond like we recognise a cartoon responding.

Can you talk more about how the motion capture process works?

Cameron and Debra did such a great job, it sets the game apart, and I think that’s why people responded to it so positively, because of the legitimacy of the performances. When you’re working with Tom Keegan the day always begins with you getting all of the equipment on. Then you go to a room, stand in front of a computer where they alter your form into what you play in the game. So when I’m walking around on the set, I’m four foot tall, and I have four arms. We do that, so it scales us with each other, and then we do a really great 30-40 minute warm-up. It’s one of the highlights of working with Tom because your body is ready to go. Even if you’re a big bulky guy like me. I love the stretching, and the warm-ups, the waking up of every part of your body. Then we would just do the scenes as we would in a movie. Although you’re not cutting around. The whole thing is filmed in one swoop. So if it’s a seven-minute scene, then we do the seven minutes all at one time, with four main cameras, and a hundred others! Grabbing all of the information. If you screw up a line in the third last line of this seven-minute scene, then we’d go back to the beginning. You could maybe patch in the last line, but you couldn’t patch in all of the other stuff. I’m sure it’s down to how the computer is taking in information, and connecting my mathematical equation into its mathematical equation. You can’t intercut between them. We worked a lot until we got it right. We re-shot stuff throughout the process, we redid scenes, because the directors of the game wanted them different, a little more heightened, funny, heartfelt.

Tough question time: what was the most rewarding part about being involved with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order?

Just being present in the game. It’s not lost on me; I’m not an actor because I’m a master of the Royal Shakespeare Academy. I’m an actor because as a child I loved movies and TV shows. I learnt so much from them about how to do what I do. So to be able to go into a Star Wars project, it just gave me great pride to be part of the Skywalker storyline. It’s mind-blowing. To be the guy that people do really respond to; they really got the jokes and the layers. That’ll make any actor proud. I’m lucky to do what I do. Bottom line: to have this on my resume, and on my tombstone – one day [laughs] – is very gratifying.

The game has been highly praised by both Star Wars fans and critics. Why do you think it’s had such a great response, and what do you think makes it stand out from other Star Wars games?

I hadn’t played any of the other Star Wars games, but the feedback from my own children, who are avid gamers, is that this isn’t just chasing people or shooting people, this is a real story, with a real journey for the hero. The player gets to go on the hero’s journey, and get better, smarter as the game goes on. It’s been very satisfying for people. So, it’s a great skill game, and it’s a great story.

What can our readers expect from you next?

I’ve just created this not for profit called www.achannelofpeace.org. Through it we are going to create faith-filled family entertainment. I know that’s a far cry from STARBURST and Star Wars [laughs]. However, one of the reasons why people are still clinging to Star Wars is that it’s something that you could watch with your kids, and be really entertained by. There’s three generations of people watching Star Wars together. I think creating content for that kind of medium is extraordinarily important. I directed a movie called Getting Grace, and the next movie I’m going to direct is called The Hail Mary. I do have to reveal something mysterious for your readers though… there’s a thing that I’m doing before the next movie, that, next to Star Wars, is perhaps the greatest gift that I’ve ever been given as an actor. I’m going to step into a role, created by someone else, and now I get a chance to be that character, in a really cool new thing…

STAR WARS JEDI: FALLEN ORDER is out now. For more information on Daniel’s projects (including the one he just teased!), follow him on Twitter @MrDanielRoebuck

Justin Benson & Aaron Moorhead | SYNCHRONIC

Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead are the directorial duo of genre-bending movies Resolution, Spring, and The Endless. After seeing their latest offering Synchronic at FrightFest Glasgow, we caught up with the pair at to talk about its genesis.

STARBURST: How did the idea for Synchronic develop from its inception to the final film?

Aaron Moorhead: I remember one day we were having lunch and you said you had this really cool idea but wasn’t quite sure what was yet, and it ended up being this idea for taking a pill to perceive time all at once. We then discussed how to investigate that kind of designer drug. We didn’t want the characters to be cops investigating people dying, because having guns and authority and kicking down people’s doors to ask questions is the easy way to do it. We decided they should be public servants of some kind, and would be dealing with death and people dying all the time. We also realised that one of them should be dying as well, and the other one needs a similar problem, which is his missing daughter. Then we thought that since we’re making this thing about friendship, we started talking about themes that were running through our own lives, and decided that one of them has to make a giant sacrifice for the other. The story was pieced together in that direction.

Jason Benson: I’ve realised in retrospect that the movie was unconsciously inspired by Doctor Manhattan. We both know Watchmen, everybody’s read that chapter and now everyone’s seen that episode of the TV show. That really helped giving our movie a basic comprehension. From Beyond, as well, with its pineal gland stimulation. I came across a gif for it and thought ‘What an interesting idea, I had no idea this existed.’

AM: We had a lot of imagery in the movie that mostly got pared out, but the pineal gland is where a lot of mystics see the third eye or the seat of the soul, and taking Synchronic can be viewed in some way as opening your third eye. There was a lot of pseudo-mystical imagery around the pineal gland being the third eye, and Steve, the guy who has cancer on it, is slowly dying and killing his third eye.

Appropriately for a time travel movie, Synchronic has a highly historical setting in New Orleans. How did the city’s history play into the story?

JB: There aren’t many cities in America where you can tell a time travel story. If it was in Los Angeles, every time you’d go back it would be a dirt lot. You might see some Native Americans.

AM: You’d go back in time and see the same person you just had a meeting with!

JB: This pill allows you to see the frozen river of time where everything happens simultaneously and go into the layers of that. New Orleans is the one city in America where there’s all kinds of interesting stuff. Yes, you still have things like the Ice Age, there’s also French colonialism, Spanish colonialism, and the fact that there are structures on property that literally was a swamp. It gives us some more interesting places to go to.

Your films have a great deal of emotional content that genre movies often lack. Is that an important aspect of your filmmaking?

JB: Absolutely. I think it’s a shame when people don’t. There are lot of reasons why you’d want to make a story more character-based or more emotional and getting to know characters beyond the archetype they represent. You can make movies where you just drop in an archetype and don’t know anything about them because as a viewer you’ve seen that character in so many different movies. The idea is that if we can get people really caring about the character as a real person, then all the genre stuff will hopefully work so much better, because people feel like it’s a real person being put through this rollercoaster ride.

AM: Doing that, for us at least, takes time. You have to sit with them for a while and listen to them talk and see them make decisions. This ties into your last question, because it can feel like it’s slowing down your movie to take that time to get to know someone before the stakes matter, so you start trimming it back, but then you start losing the person. The genre stuff is cool, but who’s it happening to? You kind of know them, but not well enough. That’s one of the reasons we went back into the edit, to find small, interesting details and flesh them out to make them more human and bring their performances to the surface.

JB: We’ve realised over the course of four movies is that we want our characters to be flawed, but it’s really tricky because when you get feedback there’s a weird line. Audiences want them to be flawed, but not too flawed.

AM: I have a theory on this and I’ve been solidifying it over the last few weeks. I think likeability, when it comes to scriptwriting, is complete and total bullshit, and that likeability comes from casting. If you cast somebody who has a pathos to them they can do a lot of awful stuff and everyone still hopes they make it out okay, but if you cast someone who’s boring or super-charming they don’t like them and think they’re a douchebag. You can make someone likeable in a script, but if you make someone unlikable in a script you don’t actually know if they’re unlikeable in the movie until you cast them. I think as long as I want them to succeed, they’re likeable enough to me until I cast whoever it’s going to be. If you cast someone with a soulful face who gives a meaningful performance you’re going to get something great.

SYNCHRONIC will be released soon. You can read our review here.

[ENDED] WIN a copy of STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER on Blu-ray!

We’ve got two Blu-ray copies of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker to give away in our fiendishly easy competition….

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Lucasfilm and director J.J. Abrams’ riveting, inspiring conclusion of the seminal Skywalker saga, electrified audiences around the globe, earning more than a billion dollars worldwide. Soon fans can complete their collections when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker arrives digitally in HD and 4K Ultra HD™ on April 13th, one week before it lands physically in 4K Ultra HD™, Blu-ray™, 3D Blu-ray™ and DVD on April 20th.

To be in with a chance to win a copy, just send your answer to the question below to [email protected] with the header ‘Rise of Skywalker’ to arrive before 11:59pm on Sunday, April 26th.

What is the name of the lovable new droid introduced in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker?

A) DIO

B) Rainbow

C) D-O

Bonus material includes a feature-length, making-of documentary, which goes behind the scenes with the cast and filmmakers from Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker and explores the legacy of the Skywalker saga. Bonus features also dig into the film’s Pasaana desert scenes, including the thrilling landspeeder chase, and the ship in which Rey discovers family secrets as well as a new little droid named D-O. Plus, fans will hear from Warwick Davis, who reprises his role as Wicket the Ewok, as well as the creature effects team that created a record 584 creatures and droids for the film.

Blu-ray & Digital Bonus features include:

The Skywalker Legacy – The story lives forever in this feature-length documentary that charts the making of Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.
Pasaana Pursuit: Creating the Speeder Chase – Dive into the making of the movie’s epic landspeeder chase and discover how this spectacular sequence was brought to the screen.
Aliens in the Desert – See what it took to create the Pasaana desert scenes, from the sheer scale and complexity of the shoot to its colourful details.
D-O: Key to the Past – Explore the ship that connects Rey to the mystery of her missing parents and get to know the galaxy’s newest, irresistible droid.
Warwick & Son – Warwick Davis, who played Wicket in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, dons the Ewok costume once more; this time joined by his son Harrison. • Cast of Creatures – The team behind the film’s memorable creatures reveal the puppetry, makeup, prosthetics and digital magic that bring them to life!

The ninth and final episode in the Skywalker saga welcomed the return of original characters Luke Skywalker, General Leia Organa, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, Emperor Palpatine and Lando Calrissian, along with the latest generation of heroes and villains, including Rey, Finn, Poe, BB-8, Maz, Rose, General Hux and Kylo Ren. Newcomers include Jannah, a new ally of the Resistance; Allegiant General Pryde of the First Order; and smuggler Zorii Bliss.

You can buy the Blu-ray, DVD, or 4K Blu-ray here: https://amzn.to/2VvVSuk

Terms & Conditions:

STARBURST does not accept any responsibility for late or lost entries due to the Internet or email problems. Proof of sending is not proof of receipt. Entrants must supply full details as required on the competition page, and comply with all rules to be eligible for the prizes. No responsibility is accepted for ineligible entries or entries made fraudulently. Unless otherwise stated, the Competition is not open to employees of: (a) the Company; and (b) any third party appointed by the Company to organise and/or manage the Competition; and (c) the Competition sponsor(s). This competition is a game promoted STARBURST. STARBURST’s decision is final in every situation and no correspondence will be entered into. STARBURST reserves the right to cancel the competition at any stage, if deemed necessary in its opinion, and if circumstances arise outside of its control. Entrants must be UK residents and 18 or over. Entrants will be deemed to have accepted these rules and to agree to be bound by them when entering this competition. The winners will be drawn at random from all the correct entries, and only they will be contacted personally. Prize must be taken as stated and cannot be deferred. There will be no cash alternatives. STARBURST routinely adds the email addresses of competition entrants to the regular newsletter, in order to keep entrants informed of upcoming competition opportunities. Details of how to unsubscribe are contained within each newsletter. All information held by STARBURST will not be disclosed to any third parties

Matthew Mercer | THE EXPLORER’S GUIDE TO WILDEMOUNT

Matthew Mercer is one of the most famous Dungeon Masters in the world today. His online show, Critical Role has inspired thousands of people to get into Dungeons and Dragons and has its own cult following. He recently collaborated with Wizards of The Coast to produce a new book for D&D called The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount, which puts Mercer’s unique world of Exandria into the hands of gamers everywhere. We caught up with Matthew and asked him some questions…

STARBURST: How would you explain Critical Role to the Queen of England?

Matthew Mercer: Oh man… [laughs]. I would say something along the lines of “It’s a group of close friends who are performers, gathering to improvise and create a thrilling story of heroism and humanity together using dice rolls to determine outcomes. Then, we put it on the Internet for others to hopefully enjoy!”

How would the teenage version of yourself react to discovering what you do for a living these days? How would you explain it to him?

He would… not believe me. It wouldn’t make sense in that era (I mean, it barely makes sense now)! I would try to explain it as “You know those incredible moments in a TTRPG where emotional highs and lows emerge from the ether spontaneously, as gripping, visceral, and cathartic as any other visual media can accomplish? Now, it appears that much of that experience does translate to an audience if the players are genuine and invested!”

You run a 4-hour game for 6 players every week. How do you fight off getting burnt out?

It’s an ever-present fear that looms on the horizon, believe you me! I feel I manage to avoid it by ensuring I take breaks in a day when needed to change scenery, and ensuring that I don’t commit too much that I’m not genuinely, personally invested in. Honestly, I know I owe a lot to my players and cohorts in this unexpected business venture. They are my family, and our shared love of what we do is sustenance enough when I feel the well sometimes getting dry.

Which is your favourite NPC to be, and why? What makes an NPC fun for you?

Oh now… that’s an unfair question! I can’t pick among my children like that! I will say that I very enjoy stepping into Sean Gilmore’s glorious self, and have recently been really relishing the chaos of the Traveller.

Why is The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount essential for all brave adventurers?

I wouldn’t say it’s essential for all adventurers, but I would say it is a great boon to those wanting to either live a life well-worn into the world of Wildemount, or a similar place. It’s a wonderful resource for inspiration for players and Dungeon Masters alike!

How did Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount come about?

It was largely Wizards of the Coast reaching out to me to inquire about my interest in collaborating on such a book! Given the opportunity to work with a company who really helped forge who I am today, I couldn’t say no.

What was the toughest part about making Exandria an ‘official’ D&D setting?

Hmmm… definitely wanting to live up to the expectations of such an endeavour. Not only to make something that feels like it can sit alongside all the other amazing D&D books and hold its own, but also a book that could be an enjoyable resource for people who aren’t necessarily into Critical Role or know anything about the world in advance.

D&D has many, many lovely settings; which one would you not run and why?

That’s such a tough question! I love so many, and would run any of them… but if I had to put one lowest on my priority list, I’d probably say Dragonlance, if only because it leans the closest to classic, OG fantasy where my usual campaign resides, when I’d want to run something strange and offbeat, like Planescape or Dark Sun.

If you could voice any D&D hero from the many D&D books and novels in an animated adaptation, who would it be?

[Laughs] Oh that one’s easy: either Raistlin or Jarlaxle.

Speaking of animated cartoons, what can we expect from The Legend of Vox Machina?

Expect something reeeeeally special! With so much faith put in us by the community to make this the best we possibly can, we’ve been putting everything we have into elevating it into something really amazing. From the design aspects, animation, and mood, to the writing, cast, and overall presentation… I think folks will be really pleased. It’s gonna be epic, it’s gonna be bloody, it’s gonna be crass, it’s gonna be unadulterated Vox Machina!

You’re best known for D&D but would you do another popular genre RPG?

I would, and look forward to doing more as time goes on! Critical Role‘s main campaign (and ancillary content) does take up a lot of my brain space, but when pockets of inspiration find me, I’d love to explore more Horror genre elements, or odd modern-adjacent games and settings.

You’ve inspired so many people to pick up D&D as a hobby and Critical Role has spawned many Actual Play podcasts and the like. Do you listen to other shows, and if so, which ones are you enjoying at the moment?

I listen in bursts, usually an episode here or there, jumping around. My lack of free time leaves me unable to follow anything religiously, but I enjoy checking in occasionally with the Adventure Zone, Rivals of Waterdeep, and High Rollers, to name a few.

What are you reading at the moment and which books would you recommend to experienced fantasy fans?

Right now? Nothing directly fantasy related, but I just finished a re-read of Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor, an incredible graphic novel that I had the pleasure of helping model for years back. It’s really a beautiful story. As for recommendations for fantasy fans, I’m a little out of the loop of modern fantasy publications! I’m more inspired reading non-fiction about ancient mythology and culture, as well as occult history. I find those types of tomes really help inspire me in my storytelling.

The Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount is out now and can be found at all good games stores. A preview is available on D&D Beyond and Roll20.net.

Main image: Gage Skidmore

TOP 10 ANIME to watch in SPRING 2020

April 1st not only sees the population’s attempt at cheap jokes but also marks the beginning of a brand new season in the wonderful world of Anime!

This season we have plenty of hot new shows including a long-awaited adaptation, more Isekai (some great, some not so great) and highly anticipated second and third seasons of some fan favourites. So what do we recommend? Whether you are new to this incredible medium or a die-hard fan looking for your next obsession; let’s take a look at the Top 10 Anime that should be on your radar during the Spring 2020 Season of Anime.

New Shows

Kakushigoto

Where to watch: FUNimation

Synopsis:

Gotou Kakushi, an artist who draws a somewhat vulgar manga, tries to hide his profession from his young daughter, Hime. A father-daughter tale of love and laughter ensues.

Why STARBURST recommends it:

Heartwarming and hilarious tales of relationships, work/home balance and growing up are a fond favourite of ours – and this anime ticks all the boxes!

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!

Where to watch: Crunchyroll

Synopsis:

Wealthy heiress Katarina Claes is hit in the head with a rock and recovers the memories of her past life. It turns out the world she lives in is the world of the game Fortune Lover, an otome game she was obsessed with in her past life… but she’s been cast as the villain character who tries to foil the protagonist’s romances! The best ending the game has for Katarina is exile, and the worst, death! She’ll have to find a way to avoid triggering the flags of doom, and make her own happy future! The misunderstanding-based screwball love comedy now begins!

Why STARBURST recommends it:

In recent years we have been inundated with Isekai – however, this particular entry in the popular sub-genre is already one of the best. Funny, charming and entertaining as hell!

Sing “Yesterday” for Me

Where to watch: Crunchyroll

Synopsis:

Kei Toume’s eighteen-year youth ensemble classic gets its long-awaited animated adaptation. A story of love and humanity, following four boys and girls trying to live their best lives through hardship and turmoil, in a small town on a private rail line just outside of Shinjuku. Minor misunderstandings lead to big complications, and their various feelings become entangled. A story of daily life lived 49% looking back, 51% looking forward.

Why STARBURST recommends it:

A huge fan favourite finally gets the Anime treatment after almost two decades since its debut. An incredibly endearing story that, even from its first episode, tugs at the heartstrings and has you hooked.

Tower of God

Where to watch: Crunchyroll

Synopsis:

Reach the top, and everything will be yours. At the top of the tower exists everything in this world, and all of it can be yours. You can become a god. This is the story of the beginning and the end of Rachel, the girl who climbed the tower so she could see the stars, and Bam, the boy who needed nothing but her.

Why STARBURST recommends it:

Adapted from a South Korean webtoon and possessing a unique art style, this show could be a sleeper hit with those not familiar with its source material. An interesting concept tied together with great visuals and a badass opening and ending theme from K-pop band Stray Kids – Tower of God has all the potential to be Anime of the Season.

Beastars

Where to watch: Netflix

Synopsis:

In a world where beasts of all kinds coexist, a gentle wolf awakens to his own predatory urges as his school deals with a murder within its midst.

Why STARBURST recommends it:

Make no mistake, this is one weird show. However, it is so much more than that. Check out our full review here for more information.

Diary Of Our Days At The Breakwater

Where to watch: FUNimation

Synopsis:

First-year student Hina Tsurugi prefers to do indoor activities such as crafting. Having recently moved to a seaside town, she runs into an older schoolmate, Kuroiwa, who invites her to join the “Teibou” club and start fishing! Surrounded by eccentric club members, how will Hina’s high school life turn out?

Why STARBURST recommends it:

A super sweet club anime about an introvert city girl who moves to the countryside and joins the fishing club – what’s not to love?

Wave, Listen to Me!

Where to watch: FUNimation

Synopsis:

On a night out drinking to get over being duped and ditched by her last boyfriend, Koda Minare ends up providing a massive drunken rant—while blackout drunk—for Matou, the director of a radio station. The next day, she is shocked to hear her own voice being broadcast on the radio! She rushes to the studio, leaving her job at a curry soup and bread restaurant in jeopardy. However, her drunken rant and the next day’s impromptu damage-control live broadcast end up earning her an invitation to try working at the radio station!

Why STARBURST recommends it:

An electrifying opening episode with an incredibly charismatic lead character and performance. The narrative captures a lot of real-world feelings and is very funny and relatable.

Listeners

Where to watch: FUNimation

Synopsis:

Set in a world where the concept of music ceases to exist. The story begins when a boy encounters Myuu, a mysterious girl who possesses an audio input jack in her body. The two intermingle with the history of rock music and embark on an unforgettable journey.

Why STARBURST recommends it:

A sci-fi, action-adventure involving music, monsters and giant mechs. Need we say anymore? From the studio that brought you Zombieland Saga, Listeners is a thrilling and incredibly unique concept that is shaping up to be a dark-horse this season.

Returning Shows

Kaguya-sama: Love is War – Season 2

Where to watch: FUNimation

Synopsis:

From a good family? Check! A good personality? Check! Shuchiin Academy is where all these elite students with bright futures flock to. As the two leaders of the student council, Kaguya Shinomiya and Miyuki Shirogane have supposedly fallen in love… But after almost half a year, nothing has happened!? They both have too much pride and can’t be honest. Things have gotten troublesome, and they are now caught in a war of “How to get the other to confess their love first.” This is a whole new romantic comedy, following an outbreak of cunning warfare between two elite students in love.

Why STARBURST recommends it:

Season 1 of this hilarious rom-com was one of our favourites from the entire year of 2019 – so we are of course excited for the continuation of this incredibly well written and side-splittingly funny series. Season 1 is available on Crunchyroll, however, FUNimation has shocked the anime world and have the exclusive rights to the second season.

Fruits Basket – Season 2

Where to watch: Crunchyroll / FUNimation

Synopsis:

Tohru Honda thought her life was headed for misfortune when a family tragedy left her living in a tent. When her small home is discovered by the mysterious Soma clan, she suddenly finds herself living with Yuki, Kyo, and Shigure Soma. But she quickly learns their family has a bizarre secret of their own: when hugged by the opposite sex, they turn into the animals of the Zodiac!

Why STARBURST recommends it:

The first season of this perfect adaptation of the classic manga received a 10/10 from us here at STARBURST – and season 2 should be no different. Gorgeous visuals, beautiful storytelling and some of the best characters in all of anime, Fruits Basket is a show NOT to be missed.

What are some of your favourites from this season of Anime? Let us know what shows you check out from our list by tweeting us @STARBURST_MAG!

Felicia Day | POOKA LIVES

The latest instalment in Blumhouse Television’s series for Hulu, Into the Dark, marks the series’ first sequel. Following up last year’s Pooka! comes Pooka Lives!, a tale wherein ‘a group of thirty-something friends from high-school create their own Creepypasta about Pooka for laughs, but are shocked when it becomes so viral on the Internet that it actually manifests more murderous versions of the creature.’ A real 180-degree turn from the bleak weirdness of the first film, Pooka Lives! features a cavalcade of comedic talent, from Jonah Ray to Rachel Bloom to Wil Wheaton, along with Felicia Day.

We were lucky enough to speak with the latter about the film, what attracted her to it, and horror comedy in general.

STARBURST: We find it really interesting that you’re in Pooka Lives just because of its whole take on Internet culture, because that has been such a big part of your career.

Felicia Day: Yeah, I think I was subliminally attracted to it, because I do like the theme of the Internet being a jerk to somebody, but real life friendship overcoming it, in a sense.

A big part of the plot is people getting piled on, online: has that been something that you’ve ever experienced yourself?

Absolutely. There were incidents in the gamergate situation – I don’t really like talking about that, but I did put it in my book. I was driven out of doing a lot of gaming stuff. I stopped doing the gaming things, which were basically what I was known for, because several thousand people just followed me around doing whatever I did. I thought, you know, psychologically I was very affected in a negative way and so I kind of had to withdraw a lot. Even now I don’t do as much as I wish I could do in that. Now, it’s back to normal, but I have withdrawn a lot and in it you know it was hard to deal with, so I certainly empathise with the core message of the movie, in a sense.

It also seems like as if the role that you play in Pooka Lives seems almost tailor-made for you in so many different ways. We have to ask: are you that woo-woo in any aspect of your life?

My producing partner, Ryan Copple, write the script and I think he wrote the part for me. I came on as a producer and I had a lot of involvement in the script, as well, so I certainly had my hands in guiding the character, but he’s been my best friend for 10 years, so I think he’s already one-upped me on creating a role that I couldn’t say no to.

In real life? No, I am not like that. I certainly dabbled in that, but I’m more the skeptical person. When my friend gives me a crystal, I kind of throw it in the yard. [laughs] It was actually pretty fun to play, because I think inside I kind of love that stuff from a spectator point of view, but I’m more of a – instead of a real-life shaman healing me, I’m all into the magic D&D shaman.

You’re a mother in real life and you’re playing a parent in this. Even though the part of is kind of based on you, do did you worry about falling into a thing where it’s like, “Oh you’re a mom, so of course you can play a mom”?

This character is certainly not me in real life, and that’s what I kind of like about it – she’s a lot more outgoing and bolder and more social, in a sense – she’s sort of the social fabric for this group. She’s certainly not me. I’m like, the last to do anything with other people.

But, you’re right – I think this is one of the first times I played a mom. I think I’ve resisted that a lot in auditions and shows that I’ve been offered because, quite frankly, mom parts are real boring. They’re mostly written by guys and the mom part services other people’s stories and I feel like women in general are a lot more interesting than that. You know, just because you have a kid doesn’t mean you give up your personality. You have to give up some things, but you’re still an interesting person. Some of the most interesting people I know are women who have children.

So, a lot of these parts are not interesting, but what I love about this one and why I wanted to play it and I was like, “Oh, this could be me in six or seven years” – because I have a three-year-old – was because she does have a life, and she does have a vibrant sort of personality that doesn’t just kind of gets subsumed by other people’s needs for her. So, I’m excited. I really love the part. I’d love to play her again.

That’s such an important part of her as a character in that she’s very outspoken, especially in terms of like standing up for herself in her role in the marriage. It’s great, because they’re obviously people who have sort of grown up and maybe grown a little bit apart, but they still care for each other.

Ryan Copple, when he was talking about it, he was basing it on relationships he knew, where people had been together a really long time. There’s a lot of things you can go through. You can love each other and still be irritated that they still leave the toilet seat up. I lvoe that there are all these small emotional arcs that are built into the movie.

Normally, I think genre movies aren’t able to kind of infuse that sort of characterization and that’s why I think this movie is very much like Buffy or Supernatural, in that the relationships are the things that carry through, but the action is what makes it exciting. Again: the vibe of the movie is so in my wheelhouse, just as a fan and as a person who does what I do.

Are you a fan of creepypasta in general?

I am not! I have to tell you, I am a scaredy cat, in general. I couldn’t sleep after the Game of Thrones episodes where the dragons were slightly endangered so, like, [laughs] I have such a nervous anxiety that I have to steer clear of things that are too tense – so, certainly, creepy Internet memes. I’m more of a keyboard cat or the funny memes. I love those kind of things, both old school and the newer stuff. That’s what I gravitate towards. I certainly have not been diving in, wanting to be scared.

That’s what I like about this movie: that it does walk the line, tone-wise. It does have its horror moments, but it’s kind of a Sam Raimi/Buffy/Supernatural horror, versus like a hardcore kind of tone.

We were going to ask if that was what really attracted you to Pooka Lives – the idea that it’s a horror comedy with a really good emphasis on both aspects?

Yeah, and that’s a really difficult tone to try and nail. I think a lot of people try and fail and or they go into parody. This is not parody. These are real characters in real circumstances. It’s not building into cliches, but it does have that tonality of self-awareness and ridiculous things that people are reacting to. Honestly, I think it’s a hard tone to nail as a writer and I think the combo of Alejandro Brugués and Ryan Copple really works in favor of the film. Alejandro comes from the Sam Raimi school, in a sense, and so, in all the action sequences you can see that sort of infused in everything. Even though with a low budget, they really pop and are so fun and gasp-worthy. You’re laughing, but at the same time, you’re going, “Whoa!”

I love it. I think it’s perfect zeitgeist for right now, when people don’t really want deep, traumatic horror. We’re all in our houses. Let’s have some fun, right?

In partnership with Blumhouse Television, INTO THE DARK is a monthly horror event series from prolific, award-winning producer, Jason Blum’s independent TV studio. Each feature-length instalment is inspired by a holiday and features Blumhouse’s signature genre/thriller spin on the story. Pooka Lives! is now streaming.

Bernard Bullen | THE MANDALORIAN

THE MANDALORIAN has finally arrived in the UK, and if you’re anything like us, you already have the first couple of episodes on repeat! To help bridge that wait between the episodes, we caught up with BERNARD BULLEN (the father of The Mandalorian) to discuss what it was like to work on such a huge and secretive set under the direction of Taika Waititi, and much more…

STARBURST: How did you get involved with The Mandalorian?

Bernard Bullen: It was a huge surprise for me as you can imagine. I was in LA, my manager told me that the casting office was asking for my dramatic reels. They were interested in me. They talked about Sarah Finn casting. I went through a process of selections, over a couple of months. That was in November 2018. Then in January after I came back from Christmas I found out. Until then I didn’t even know what the project was, the only thing they told us was that it was a huge Disney project, and that they wanted an hispanic father. When I came back and they told me that it was for The Mandalorian, I said “What’s The Mandalorian?” I went onto IMDb and saw that it was Star Wars, and I couldn’t believe it.

How much of an impact had Star Wars had on your life before this point? Had you seen many of the films?

I’m past 40, so I grew up with the first three films, especially Return of the Jedi. I still have all of the toys from that era of the ‘80s. I saw the latest films, but I would have never imagined that I was going to be a part of the Star Wars universe. I’m still in shock really!

What can you tell us about your character? Who is he, and how does he fit into the world of The Mandalorian?

Obviously they didn’t give us a lot of information because they were keeping everything about the project secret. We got on set and we really didn’t know anything. Then we were filming for two days and a half, and found out that The Mandalorian obviously had a life before all of this. As a kid he lived on Mandalore with his parents. We had a lot of impact in his life, because of this childhood. His home, town, city was destroyed by the dark forces at the time. It was soon after the events of Return of the Jedi. The last image that he has is of his parents, carrying him around the city, trying to escape, and keep him safe. Obviously it had a lot of weight, because it’s deep inside him. Everything he knows, he knows from me. You’ll be able to see very dramatic scenes in the show. The father gives everything to save his child’s life. It’s understood that the parents die, but it’s never shown.

Can you tell us about what you remember the most from your first day of working on set?

I was pinching myself! I was trying to keep my cool, because obviously I was like “Oh my god!”. I have to say that the whole team were so nice. So into it. 1000% percent. You could feel that. From make-up to crew, to runners, everyone. We had dress rehearsals and all of that, I just couldn’t believe it. When we got to the set they had built a whole town. The scenes where we are running through the streets were built sets, they were massive! So you realise, “My god, this is Star Wars!” Explosions, droids, everywhere. Only on the last day, when I had the last scene, the most dramatic one, and Taika Waititi – who directed our scenes – said that it was a wrap, that was when I realised what had happened in the last two days. I started crying like a baby. It was very emotional.

What was Taika Waititi like to work with?

He is incredible, I only have amazing words for him. He is very funny, he’s very low key. One of my friends worked with him on Jojo Rabbit, and he came over to me and said that we had a friend in common! That made the whole two days amazing straight away. He is very intelligent, and he has a vision of things that are very unique. He makes everyone feel very comfortable. I was very happy to be working with him. I would love to work with him again.

What did you learn the most from working on The Mandalorian, and how did it compare to anything that you’d done before as an actor?

I’ve done bigger roles, and longer ones. However, this was quite unique and amazing to see how something like this worked. It’s such a huge production. The technical aspects of everything. For example all of our scenes are in the middle of destruction and chaos. We have to be running in-between real explosions, and other ones that weren’t real. As an actor you learn how to work with what’s real, and what’s not. That mixed with a huge production, and how it was directed, it was quite incredible. All the behind the scenes that the audience can’t see. I learnt a lot about myself, because my role had a lot of physicality. It was very exhausting in that sense. They did warn me that I was going to be carrying a kid of ten years old for two days, for sixteen hours. I said “Oh well, I can manage!” However, it was tough.

What was the secrecy of a set like this like to work with?

We signed an NDA of course. We couldn’t say anything. The funny thing with the secrecy of this, is that we had to walk from the trailers to the set while wearing a black cloak, so that no one could see what we were wearing. We were filming in Manhattan Beach Studios in Los Angeles. So until you get to the studio where the set is, there are other studios, other crews, actors. So no one could see what we were wearing. We could only take it off when we were on the set. We saw paparazzi climbing up the walls to try and take pictures. We were filming in a very secretive set. You really have to know where it is to find it. They were surrounded by huge walls. Still, there were paparazzi trying to get pictures of us.

What was it like to see your character on screen for the first time? What do you remember from that moment?

It was very exciting, very emotional. I love how they work with the flashbacks. I thought it was so amazingly shot. With all of the SFX, explosions, droids. It was amazing, and I couldn’t believe that it was me there on the screen.

Will the show appeal to viewers who might not be overly familiar with the previous Star Wars movies?

Even if you aren’t a fan of Star Wars, it’s just so good. It’s so different, so original. It’s a completely different story and chapter in the Star Wars universe. There are new characters, so that makes it more attractive to an audience. In film, the story is currently ending, but, it’s just beginning on TV. I think the success of the show is the format, and how it’s written. The unique thing that you never see the face of The Mandalorian himself, yet it still works. It’s so well directed and shot. There’s a mystery about it. The Mandalorian says so much without showing his face, only by moving his body, or through the few lines he has. The story is very powerful. It’s been a huge success in the US, and we’re excited to have it out in the UK and Europe.

Episodes of THE MANDALORIAN are available weekly on Disney+

Soska Sisters | VENDETTA

Since exploding onto the map with Dead Hooker in a Trunk back in 2009, Jen and Sylvia Soska have gone on to become huge favourites of many a genre fan. As their 2015 movie Vendetta gets set to premiere on Horror Channel, we caught up with the Twisted Twins to reflect back on this brutal Dean Cain and Paul ‘Big Show’ Wight-starring actioner.

STARBURST: While it would be easy to talk about the headlining duo of Dean Cain and Big Show for Vendetta, first and foremost Michael Eklund is absolutely fantastic as the corrupt warden at the centre of this tale. Just how good is Michael?

Jen: He’s just the most amazing actor. He’s a method actor. There’s nothing that he can’t do. When he’s in character, he’s 110%. Not only is he such an amazing actor, he forces everyone around him to bring their game up. Not that he was teaching anything to Dean Cain, but Dean can go and Eklund can go.

Sylvia: Michael Eklund is such a team player. He was shooting another movie at the same time and there was a holiday in between, so people were like, “You’re not going to be able to get Michael, he’s double-booked on this other thing. If you get him, he’s literally going to have to leave where he is and come back to your set to do a 13-page day where it’s mostly him talking.” I was, “Don’t worry about it, it’s Michael Eklund, it’ll be fine.”

Jen: He’s such a comic book villain. He’s such a charming, charming guy. Vendetta is really our Punisher movie. Dean is our Punisher, Big Show is our Kingpin. Vincent D’Onofrio is a god, but Big Show will eat you alive, he will snap you like a toothpick.

Sylvia: Eklund is such a WWE fan, so there were points where we wanted to really push the physicality. It’s so much fun to have these movies with these big action sequences. At the end, when things are becoming unhinged, Eklund goes through so many layers with this character.

Jen: What I love about Action Movies vs. Horror Movies, is it doesn’t have to make sense. For half of a horror movie, you’re saying, “Why aren’t they calling the police?” I hate that, it’s so boring. In Vendetta it was more, “How do we kill this guy? We throw someone off the roof! Who cares, it’s WWE!” That was one of my favourite kills.

Sylvia: That was Dee Jay [Jackson]. He was so awesome. That guy took Dean Cain from room to room to room, so we wanted to give him one of the most memorable deaths.

Jen: And he was in Slither! We got absolutely spoilt for talent. Juan [Riedinger], who played the other main thug guy, he was from Grave Encounters – which we really loved.

You ladies are so synonymous with horror, and there’s definitely a sense of horror to some of Vendetta’s death scenes, but how was it tackle a straight-up action movie for the first time?

Sylvia: It was really cool that WWE wanted us for it. They were doing a six-part action series for Lionsgate and we were the first choice for directors. It was exactly the right call for us. We had so much fun with this.

Jen: The thing I love the most about an action movie is that you don’t even really need to care if somebody dies. In a horror movie, you have to care about every single death. If you don’t care about every single person then you’ve lost the audience. Would you believe they took the violence down? There was this flashback to how Big Show took over the prison, where he stomped on someone’s head and it just exploded. We asked Big Show how strong he was, and he showed us this video of him punching somebody and them just dropping. We had to adjust a lot. He’s much bigger than a normal person. He’s a really strong man, and it was really exciting to work with somebody who was just a destructive force of nature.

Sylvia: Paul is just such a good actor. There’s so much that he brought to the movie. One of my favourite scenes is the cafeteria scene where it’s like Mean Girls and he’s eating the food with his hands. He was explaining to me that this is an Alpha Dog thing and this is what he should be doing.

Jen: We also wanted it to have shades of I Saw the Devil, where the two of them start at different corners. If you watched the movie before, Big Show would be the good guy. You start this movie where Dean is the good guy, but if you watched the third movie then Dean would be the bad guy. We’re all one bad day away from being The Punisher.

As such huge comic book fans, how was it getting to work on Vendetta with a former Superman?

Sylvia: I wanna say this one thing about Dean Cain. He is the most coolest guy I have ever worked with. Every day, not only did he have a coordinated stunt fight, but he would go home with the stunt team and train for his next-day stunt fight. He was so cool. He would go over and make sure all of the extras were getting treats and things. He was so humble, and he really showed everyone the attitude you should have. He was just such a good sport about everything.

Jen: He is such a gentleman. I’ve never seen somebody who is such a sweetheart and so charming to the cast and crew. He’s not a trailer guy, he’s not secluded like he’s some sort of alien. The one day that he met my mom and dad was the day when he was beaten the shit out of in the laundry room. He hugged my mom, he took pictures with my parents while he was all bloody and exhausted. He was such a good boy. We should all hope to marry a boy as good as Dean Cain.

Sylvia: Then after the first week he ordered us all pizza. He’s so down-to-earth and cool about everything.

Jen: He also liked being an asshole. Dean Cain has been a beautiful, good man his entire life. To get to have a bit of an edge and be a bit of a bastard, he loved playing Mason Danvers. He absolutely loved it when he lost his edge and was killing everybody. He had the time of his life, and I really want to help him kill people again.

You’d already done See No Evil 2 with WWE Studios before Vendetta. Was there any talk of you doing any other WWE projects at that time, or was it always Vendetta?

Sylvia: We were trying to get on the Marine series, as we love The Miz. Then there’s Bray Wyatt, where we so wanted to do a movie together. Bray’s the horror guy, we’re all buddies, and we’ve been trying do find something to do together forever. We also wanted to do Three No Evil, because we were just setting it up with See No Evil 2.

Jen: I would love it. We’d have all of the original cast to come back to cameo as psychotic delusions, and Glenn [Jacobs] said he’d shoot it.

In interviews, Glenn Jacobs seems like the nicest guy. Surely somebody who’s terrified people as WWE’s Kane and See No Evil’s Jacob Goodnight can’t be that nice?

Jen: Glenn is the nicest person in the world. He’s so nice that if we didn’t do a movie together then he’s too nice to be friends with us. He’s just a respectable gentleman and he cares so deeply about people. I remember on See No Evil 2 we asked him what he would do if he could do anything in the world, and he said he’d just want to take care of people. Then he said he wanted to be Mayor because he was worried about the country – and then he did it [Glenn Jacobs is now Mayor of Knox County].

Sylvia: I wouldn’t be surprised if Glenn went on to become a Senator or something. Even on his time off, he’d always be volunteering, he’d be going to hospitals and visiting people, he’d be going overseas to visit the troops. He’s always just a selfless guy in every aspect of his life. It’s always been kind of funny and contradictory to the person he is that he plays Kane, because nothing could be farther from the truth.

While we’re talking wrestlers, how was it to work with CM Punk on Rabid?

Sylvia: Phil has been supportive of us and our career since Dead Hooker in a Trunk. What I didn’t know is that when he got American Mary, he gave that to all of the wrestlers in the back who like horror movies. He was always super supportive. Eventually we met and became really good friends. When we got See No Evil 2, we were confused as it was just, “Why don’t we three work together because we like each other and we’ve already thought about making a movie?” And then Vendetta happened and we still didn’t get to work together. So as soon as we got offered Rabid – and we knew he loved zombies and that he wanted to do horror movies – we wanted him to play Brad, the love interest, but we got limited on how long we could have American actors for. He was cool enough to play Billy, who couldn’t be farther from the guy he really is. It was insane what he was able to do. He was so sweet and so humble.

Jen: Phil is absolutely amazing. I love what an asshole he is in the film, but he’s so loveable still. He reminds me so much of Bruce Campbell. I have this dream of doing Evil Dead: The Musical and I want it to star CM Punk as Ash. He has such an Ash quality to him. Even his delivery of his misogynistic lines makes him feel like kind of a sweetheart.

David Cronenberg’s Rabid is obviously such a beloved movie. How was the challenge and pressure of putting your own spin on that concept while still being respectful to the original 1977 film?

Jen: The first thing was the terrifying thought that no one had done it before, and if we said no then they’d just find somebody else. It was going to be made one way or another. Even though I’m a person who hates remakes usually and thinks they’re a cash-in and a manipulation of the fans that has nothing to do with the original apart from the time. I didn’t want that to happen to Mr Cronenberg. I knew that he was never really truly as appreciated as he should be, and I shuddered at the thought of the next generation seeing a shitty remake of one of his films and saying, “Urgh, this Cronenberg guy must suck.” That would’ve devastated me. I wanted to make a film that was not only a celebration of David’s work, but it would also be kind of a middle ground to introduce people to his work if they hadn’t seen it. Also, if you had seen it, it was just Easter eggs and celebrations and love letters galore.

Sylvia: Jen and I didn’t seek Rabid out. We got an email in the dead of winter one day, asking us if we’d like to make Rabid. It was explained how this came to us. Apparently, they usually do religious movies, and they’d made a religious horror movie that had made a ton of money for them. They were like, “These horror movies must be easy”. So they got Rabid, thinking it was like Jaws but with dogs, not knowing anything about David’s work. They wrote the script, and it was not reflective of David’s work whatsoever. They showed it to him and asked him to be a producer, and he said, “This is Rabid in title alone. You know nothing of my work.” They asked us, “Can you ladies explain to us what Cronenberg means? How ‘bout you ladies handle the creative and we’ll handle the money?” That was a great opportunity, so we hired cast and crew who had literally worked with David. We got so many people so that we could be, “What did David do? How did he handle this?” We wanted to be as respectable as possible.

Jen: There’s never been a more self-aware remake. Even how the main character is almost remaking and helping a master designer that she feels inferior to, but she feels a kinship with. Of course, he’s already accepted her as is, but it’s her own struggles to be able to see herself as that artist. She goes through self-doubt. There’s the beautiful scene towards the end about how many girls would kill for this opportunity. So it’s a very self-aware remake, a reimagining. We even altered our directing style. As you might have guessed, we’re very loud. David is not, so we had a sanctuary set, it was like a library, and if you needed to speak you would drop your voice. It was very, very pleasant. It was like going into a church.

What was the reaction of David to the end result of the movie?

Sylvia: It’s so interesting. There was such a tremendous pressure to get David involved in the film, and what most people don’t realise is that he met his wife making the original Rabid, and he had just lost her. It was something he told us when we met him after the film was done. Because of that, we wanted to be really respectful. That’s obviously a very special film to him. We were, “How would I want to have my relationship respected like that?” I remember talking to him, and he is just so wise. He talks about it as a wonderful vocation that we do, but even he can’t see his work as I would see it. He can’t see past, “This actress was difficult this day. I lost something there. This never worked out the way I originally planned.” That was so interesting. When we were finishing up our conversation, I was, “Well David, I really look forward to you eventually watching Rabid.” He looked at me surprised and was just, “You want me to watch it?!” “Well yeah, Jen and I basically just made it for an audience of you.” He had the most interesting reaction. He has a very dry sense of humour, and he looked at my and was, “Have you ever heard of the movie Raw? Same thing happened. There was this movie, people kept saying I should go and see it and check it out. You know, I actually quite liked it. If I like your film, I’ll let you know. But I’ll be quite honest with you about it.”

Jen: Truly, you have to be David Cronenberg to fully enjoy Rabid, because there are so many in-jokes that are just for him – things he’s said in interviews and director’s commentary. He did say that the film ended up where it should have, and he was a fan of American Mary. I’ve worked so hard to earn a place across from my hero and speak to him, and he said, “You know my son, you know Mary Harron, you know all these people, and I already respect you for your work.” I thought, “Oh my god, I didn’t even need to make this movie! I could’ve just called and asked to do lunch.” I was playing a really long game to be friends with Mr Cronenberg. You know what, sometimes you make a whole movie and you didn’t even realise. That was the whole joke – I was worthy the whole time!

If you could’ve just done lunch with David before you were offered Rabid, is there any other Cronenberg movie you’d have asked to tackle?

Jen: You’ve gotta be kidding – it’s obviously Dead Ringers! I love Dead Ringers. Dead Ringers was actually one of the last Cronenberg films I saw, because I’d never seen a good depiction of identical twins. We’re such a fetishized, stereotyped group that people don’t even realise that what they do with twins is super degrading. We grew up in the normalization of fetishizing and objectifying twins because of the Olsen twins. I call them the real-life Truman Show. Being twins now, because it was okay to abuse those twins, it’s okay to be abusive to every twin. Those girls can’t even post a photo without, “Fucking ugly bitches!” I’m like, “They’re children! You watched them group up from babies. Why do you have so much hate towards them?!” So when I did finally see Dead Ringers, the emotional reaction Sylv and I had to that movie was just, “Oh my god, not only is this a movie about twins, but this person gets the intimacy about twins and being in sync with your twin, and how important that relationship is.” We always wanted to do a piece where it was identical twins telling a story about identical twins. We’ve never been able to really control our own narrative, it’s always just kind of projected on us.

Sylvia: I’m so glad that you mentioned the Olsen twins, because that’s our Dead Ringers pitch. It’s starring the Olsen twins. I know they don’t need to act, but just come on out of retirement, girls. Work with us once, control the narrative. Instead of them being gynaecologists, of course they’re proctologists. It would be fantastic.

Jen: They’d be master surgeons specialising in proctology. Instead of being caught up in drug addiction, they’d be caught up in black magic.

Having done Rabid and taken on the responsibility of reimagining a classic of yesteryear, would you want to do a remake again or is that itch now scratched?

Jen: Absolutely. I’ll say a horror movie and an action movie that I’d love to remake. The action movie hasn’t been in development for 11 years, but I’m such a fan of it. It’s also one of those movies that’s kind of a stupid franchise, but it’s sacred. It’s Highlander.

But there can be only one…

Jen: Then it should be me! I love it so much. I love how there are kid Highlanders. I love how people can wear a little leather jacket but be able to pull giant swords from it. I love the Quickening that blows up a city block. And of course, I just love that Freddie Mercury soundtrack just kicking you in the teeth. For horror, there’s actually a horror franchise that’s super-famous, by an artist that we love, that we pitched for many, many, many times. Fans will be, “Oh my god, you pitched for this and you didn’t get it? And you were going to get all the original cast?” All the original cast were going to be involved. It’s Hellraiser. I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Hellraiser. I saw Hellraiser at a time that I call ‘too young’. From the “Let me touch you, dammit,” I was all, “What the fuck is happening in this movie?” Then when I grew up, I was still, “What the fuck is happening in this movie?” Now as a much more mature woman who’s gone through a lot of darkness, who’s seen a lot of dark stuff, I get it – I’m there to make some fetishized demons.

Sylvia: I guess I’ll talk about the one I’ve always been chasing, which is Deadpool.

Jen: You’re going to remake and reimagine Deadpool?

Sylvia: Yeah! When See No Evil 2 happened, we did so well. I don’t know if I’m supposed to say who did this, but somebody was very, very impressed with us and we got to go to the offices of the bosses. We were thinking this was our big Hollywood moment. He was like, “Girls, you’ve been really successful with this and with this, and you’re now working in studio movies and being successful. Why don’t you tell us any project you can imagine – what do you want to do next?” Me and Jen both looked at each other and went, “Deadpool!” He was all, “Deadpool? Why does Deadpool sound so familiar?” He goes over to this pile of scripts and he picks Deadpool up and he puts it in my hand, and I go, “Oh my god, can we make this movie?!” He laughed and just said, “Sweetheart, nobody’s ever going to make this piece of shit.” In the end we made Twinpool because they were, “Listen, you just don’t have anything on your résumé that looks like Deadpool.” We shot a Twinpool thing where me and Jen fought each other. It even got to, and I don’t want to say who this is, but this person’s handler and they were all, “This is awesome. We’re going to give it straight to this guy and he’s going to love it.” It made it to him, but it turns out that he didn’t love it. I look at the comic I wrote for Marvel, and I’ve gotten a lot farther than most fans ever get. Will I chase Deadpool until I’m in my 70s? You’re damn right! Eventually someone’s gonna let me do it. Maybe the property will be worth fucking nothing when I get it, but I’ll get there eventually.

Jen: I can proudly say we did write the Deadpool XXX parody. One of our greatest reviews was, “It was so funny I forgot I was supposed to masturbate.” That’s a very kind and very honest review. I wish my film reviews were that kind.

On the Marvel front, you most recently tackled Black Widow: No Restraints Play – which was an extremely adult-orientated story that touched on some very real and brutal subjects. Was there much push back when you presented that idea to Marvel, or were they actively looking to develop a more serious, gritty, brutal story?

Jen: I have to champion our amazing editor, Jake Thomas. He has always been the one getting us in the door. We wrote our Guardians of the Galaxy story because Neil deGrasse Tyson dropped out. Only Jake thinks, “Fuck, I’ve lost Neil deGrasse Tyson. I better call the Soska Sisters!” The way that you pitch a comic is like how you pitch a movie. You write an outline, you say who it’s for, you say the tone of it. A lot of the characters are very, very busy forever. Our first one was Night Nurse, and my god I couldn’t get a Marvel demon to save my life. Blackheart was busy, Mephisto was busy, Dormammu is busy. Every one of them is busy in other dimensions? How is this possible?! So you wait until there is an offer. Sylvia and I had pitched a Wiccan and Hulkling, first gay couple series which we loved. We pitched an Elektra one. We pitched what our Deadpool movie would be. Then we pitched Black Widow. To me, it was like Escape from New York. I wanted no other characters. I can take side characters, but I didn’t want it to be Natasha and Bucky or Natasha and a love interest. Natasha is so cool. Every one of her backstories are a Red Room story, and it’s been so rare for her actually to get to do something different. So we pitched this completely as it was, with everything – with the child sex trafficking – and at first they passed on it, which was fine.

Sylvia: Then we got a phone call six months later where they were just, “Ladies, remember that Black Widow story? We’re going to do it but there’s going to be one change – we’re going to get rid of the paedophile story. Captain America just killed Natasha, so she’s a clone and filled with existential rage. But it’s pretty much the same story exactly, right?” Torture shows are also called Red Rooms. The character is a trauma survivor. She doesn’t have the happy story of somebody coming to train her. She was very brutalised her entire life. She goes into this situation where there’s these people who could be destroyed for life, but she shows them that she’s a survivor. She deals with somebody who’s a survivor, who didn’t find their strength and who went into a very dark place as revenge for the life they had to live. When I was a kid, my mom would let me read Stephen King books and she would explain what they were about. I remember when I read Cujo, that was the first time I saw the word paedophile. I asked my mom what it meant, and she explained that it meant “adult who hunts children.” That was so scary, but it helped us to have a dialogue without having to know the whole horror of it. I thought it was a great opportunity with Black Widow, where parents can explain it to their kids that this is the world we live in and to just always be super careful, don’t go with strangers.

Jen: Marvel, especially classic Marvel when I was growing up, always had these much greater messages. One of my favourite characters was Adam Worlock, who I liked to call Space Jesus. He was very anti-organised religion, he was very much about absolute power corrupts absolutely. To read those themes as a child, it was tricking you into learning a moralistic lesson. And when I watched Little Shop of Horrors, I didn’t realise it was telling me not to be in an abusive relationship – but it was! So, watching Black Widow be able to take strength from her pain and suffering, and to have had these kids go through something so traumatic but have that trauma be the thing they take the most strength from. Spoiler alert: they have a really nice ending and Natasha burns a lot of people alive.

Sylvia: There’s even a little girl character who we created, who was a survivor of that. She ended up amputated, she gets new hands from Tony Stark, but I hope that character stays around. You don’t see that many storylines where you see something horrific then see what kind of strength that person has afterwards.

While Black Widow is such a fantastic character, she’s often been an under-served character until recent years. How has it been to write for Marvel Comics, and how has it been to put your own stamp on a character like Natasha and showcase why she’s so great?

Sylvia: It was the greatest, most surreal experience of my life. Jennifer and I weren’t very popular growing up. I remember my grandmother would always get a funny book for us, and it would always end up being a classic Marvel comic. I started reading when Storm was leaving the X-Men. I would read those stories and I would learn about what it would be like to have friends like that, or what it would be like to be a grown woman with those kind of attributes. To be a part of that, I respect it so much. There are so many people who have nerd rage for not going and looking at the history of these characters, and there’s a good reason for it – because these lessons mean something to people, these stories mean something. I hope I get to do it forever, but every time Jen and I write a comic we write it like it’s the last one we’re going to write. I guess that’s why we’re so risqué with it and have such strong messages. You don’t have the guarantee that you’ll ever be able to do this again, so you might as well make you’re mark while you’re there.

Jen: It was such an honour when Jake Thomas reached out. What he basically said was that Natasha had really lost her identity in the films. They’ve used her to really service these storylines and these other characters, and they’ve kind of forgot that she’s so capable, so deadly, so amazing. At that time, the Black Widow movie was going to be rated R, so he asked, “Can you make Natasha be who she is again?” That was such an honour. It’s not like I had to grab some comic books and research Natasha. As Slyvie was saying, Natasha was my cool Russian friend when I was growing up. She was so sexy, and she was always telling me about her sexual exploits with Iron Man and with Daredevil – all of the hottest guys. I thought she was amazing, she was so cool, she was fearless, she was so empowered. As far as stories go, even including all of my films, this is the story I’m most proud of.

Sylvia: It was just before Disney took over Marvel. It’s funny because Jake also edits The Punisher, and then The Punisher went after child sex traffickers. In our Dear Readers letter, we talked about how the story is really cool but that we don’t have real-life Black Widows doing this for us, so we all have to be socially responsible when we hear about issues like this.

Now that Rabid and No Restraints Play are in your rear-view mirror, what can you tell us about what’s next up on your plate?

Sylvia: After we made Rabid, we were gifted with David Cronenberg’s producers, Martin Katz and Karen Wookey of Prospero Pictures. It’s been almost ten years since American Mary came out, which was the last time that we had an original script. That movie scared the shit out of people. At the time we were pitching American Mary, everyone was saying, “We would never make this movie. Could you maybe make a straightforward monster movie?” So we wrote this movie called Bob. It put people off so much that they went, “Let’s make the movie about the body modification girl. It certainly couldn’t be as bad as their monster movie…” which is what we’re actually making next. We’re extremely excited. It’s about trauma and the survival of trauma and how that really affects your perspective of life. When we were in Los Angeles we met with a few actors – one who we think is going to be the lead of the film, who is from a billion dollar franchise and is one of my favourite actors, and I’m very thrilled that we’ll be working together. He is in the perfect headspace for this character.

Jen: There’s a television show based on a book that was burnt that we’re developing. There’s another film that has an ending that every other director and studio walked away from. The ending was the reason why we were, “Aha, sign us up!” We’re also developing a comic book series. I’ve noticed how DC and Marvel have been so connected to so many corporations and branding that it’s difficult for them to really have a message or have a stance on everything – in the way that every superhero loves their country and loves their significant other, but nobody is anti-gun or pro the death penalty. Nobody really has an opinion either way, they’re just all generally kind of good people. I’d really like to write a series where you have people who are flawed, people who have opposing opinions, and watch how those people develop.

Vendetta receives its UKTV premiere Saturday, April 4th on Horror Channel.

The 80 Best Genre Films of the ’80s

Taking a cue from the likes of recent hits such as IT and STRANGER THINGS, it’s high time that we too paid tribute to the 1980s, a decade in cinema so fertile for genre output, its impact on pop culture is still felt each and every day, thirty plus years later. But of the thousands of movies released during that time, which still stand up today? Which of them have rightly attained classic status? In an undertaking only the STARBURST team are foolhardy enough to attempt, we decided to definitively rank the finest genre films produced during those ten years. After many months, the votes are now in, the numbers have been crunched, and over two hundred shortlisted titles have been whittled down to just eighty. Brace yourself for a nostalgia blast, as we countdown THE BEST SCI-FI, HORROR, AND FANTASY MOVIES OF THE EIGHTIES!

80

New Zealand is not only the end of the world, it’s also responsible for one of the best films about the end of the world, 1983’s The Quiet Earth. Three survivors of a mysterious event try to piece together what has happened and wonder whether society can continue. Evocative and provocative. | AB

79

Ken Russell’s first Hollywood picture is a science fiction tour de force, a powerful, serious, and brilliant reflection on life, love, and the universe, all of which make an appearance. Stunning to look at but with real depth thanks to a great script and classy acting from William Hurt and Blair Brown, making the final scene intellectually and emotionally astonishing. | RM

78

A Sherlock Holmes-inspired story, Basil, The Great Mouse Detective (as it was originally known in the UK) is a true Disney classic in which a beloved toymaker has gone missing, and it’s up to Basil and Dr Dawson to foil the nefarious plot of his arch-rival Professor Ratigan. Featuring the voice talents of Vincent Price and Basil Rathbone. | SP

77

After the non-canon second instalment, the Elm Street films return to form with this visual slice of heavy metal (Dokken’s title song rocks hard) featuring everyone’s favourite child murderer. Set in a mental hospital, Freddy Krueger torments the children of those who killed him, in increasingly inventive ways. Tendon puppet! | AB

76

A video game is being used to recruit new fighters for an interplanetary war, and unwitting trailer park kid Alex Rogan becomes the chosen one when he is assumed to be an ace pilot in this underrated sci-fi action comedy that pioneered CGI effects in its space battle scenes. | RP

75

A hilarious straight to video comedy (in the UK at least) featuring cranial screw-top zip-lock brain surgery inventor Dr Michael Hfuhruhurr (Steve Martin), a scheming femme fatale (Kathleen Turner), a serial killer, and true love in the form of a disembodied talking brain… oh, and David Warner as Dr Necessiter. | CJo

74

After a young boy is orphaned by the forces of a vicious sorcerer warlord, he grows up a slave knowing nothing but the desire for vengeance. Upon being freed, he follows a prophecy to destroy his enemy, his notoriety and legend beginning to grow in the process. | AM

73

Don Bluth’s adaptation of Robert C. O’Brien’s novel made for a splendid directorial debut. This dark fantasy adventure may not be known to all but is well worth (re)discovering. Classic animation, interesting storytelling, and an ensemble of characters sure to delight, The Secret of NIMH is indeed a secret gemstone of ‘80s animated cinema. | JB

72

Filmed on a shoestring budget of $500,000, this Roger Corman-produced sci-fi picture sees a group of astronauts land on the planet Morganthus, which psychologically preys on their emotions and fears. The film went through two title changes, being called Quest and Mindwarp: An Infinity of Terror before settling on the current one. Look out for Robert Englund in an early role as Ranger, Corman favourite Sid Haig as Quuhod, and classic actor Ray Walston in a dual role. A bit of trivia: the patches on their uniforms have the insignia CSF, which was known as Corman Space Flight on the set! | WB

71

Making twenty times its $700,000 budget, Night of the Comet was a post-modern sci-fi zombie exploitation film that gained a cult audience – with fans including Neil Gaiman and Joss Whedon – for its clever, witty dialogue and believable reactions to a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Auteur Thom Eberhardt would go on to write Honey, I Blew Up The Kid and not much else, sadly. | AB

70

This isn’t a film, it’s 90 minutes of richly detailed and lovingly realised world-building with an occasionally heart-stopping (them giant crabs! The way the Skeksis loom!) and often heartbreaking (the poor podlings…) plot thrown in for good measure. Arguably Jim Henson’s creative high point, many of us still intend to retire to the podling village one day. | SD

69

The landscape of ‘80s horror was certainly a mixed bag, but the (literal!) grin-inducing charm of Fright Night marks it out as a favourite of many a genre fan. William Ragsdale’s Charley Brewster has to do his best to get made-for-TV vampire hunter Peter Vincent to believe that Brewster’s new neighbour is actually a real-life bloodsucker! | AP

68

Skewing away from the blood-soaked rampage of Michael Myers, Tommy Lee Wallace’s Season of the Witch gave fans a non-Shape-centred offering that saw the sinister Silver Shamrock company take centre stage. Novelty masks that turn kids’ heads to slithering mush? Consider us sold! Dismissed as a dud at the time, Season of the Witch has gone on to become a true cult classic. | AP

67

In the shadow of E.T., John Badham’s sweet sci-fi about a military robot struck by lightning and thus attaining human intelligence (not sure if that’s any longer a positive considering humanity nowadays) is still a good-natured romp, and its mechanical star Number 5 is definitely one of cinema’s most memorable bots. | JB

66

Terry Gilliam’s finest. This is a ‘children’s’ movie where amoral small people steal from the actual God and kidnap a small child before taking him through history to nick stuff from Napoleon (Ian Holm), Robin Hood (John Cleese), and Agamemnon (Sean sodding Connery) before battling evil incarnate (David Warner, of course). Batshit mental, dark and wonderful. | SD

65

Recently revived to mixed success, Rod Serling’s iconic series received a star-studded anthology feature film back in 1983, which saw Joe Dante and George Miller arguably outdo Steven Spielberg and John Landis. Sadly the helicopter tragedy made Twilight Zone: The Movie memorable for the wrong reasons, but this is still an essential film. | JB

64

Thanks to the Chiodo Brothers’ masterfully creepy special effects and the calliope-gone-wrong score from John Masari, this sci-fi horror comedy manages to be disturbing as anything, while staying completely hilarious through some timeless gags. While Killer Klowns occasionally veers towards cheesy, it skilfully walks a tightrope between funny and scary. | NS

63

Set in a Blade Runner-style neon-lit dystopian future and featuring washed-up baseball players, zombie cop assassins, time travel paradoxes, and a jaded anti-hero named Jack Death, Charles Band’s 1984 masterpiece has it all. Did we mention that the filthy synth-core soundtrack is up there with the ‘80s greats? Kung Fury without a hint of irony! | PP

62

John Hughes is one of the go-to directors when it comes to ‘80s favourites, and Weird Science is up there as one of the helmer’s most beloved offerings. Taking a cue from Frankenstein, Anthony Michael Hall and Ilan Mitchell-Smith star as two uber-nerds who create their own virtual dream girl in the form of Kelly LeBrock. | AP

61

Time travel with a difference by legendary writer Richard Matheson. After becoming smitten with her portrait, Christopher Reeve’s lovestruck playwright desperately hypnotises himself back in time to the early 1900s to woo a young actor (Jane Seymour). Complicating matters further is her manipulative manager, played by Christopher Plummer. | RP

60

Disney’s ‘wrong turn’, this is the darkly beautiful Celtic epic that The Sword in the Stone wishes it could be. It has a psychic pig called Hen Wen, the most winsomely underdoggish of heroes, the mindbogglingly terrifying Horned King and, above all, it has Gurgi. Oh poor, beautiful Gurgi… | SD

59

He’s back, the man behind the mask! Part VI sees Jason making his Frankenstein-like appearance, resurrected by accident by the tormented Tommy Jarvis and a healthy dose of electricity. A truly classic ‘80s horror comedy with a killer soundtrack by the legendary Alice Cooper. | SP

58

Star Trek has never been short of wit and charm, but The Voyage Home exuded a warmth that the franchise has never surpassed. The whales, the probe, double-dumbass, LDS, nuclear wessels, “Your name is Jim” – it’s a smorgasBorg of memorable moments that remain a Trek highpoint 33 years on. | MN

57

Val Kilmer as a Han Solo-style swordsman, Warwick Davis not in a mask, trolls, Brownie/cat love, an amazing lead villainess, a talking goat/possum/crow, and Joanne Whalley being black-clad and unbelievably badass while ginger – if this isn’t one of the greatest fantasy films ever, we don’t want to know what is. | SD

56

Upon discovering a map to the hidden treasure of a legendary pirate, a group of children set out to locate the “rich stuff” and save their families from eviction by greedy developers, all the while evading elaborate subterranean booby traps as well as a criminal family on their trail. | AM

55

In his first attempt at another writer’s work, David Cronenberg’s version of the Stephen King story remains one of the finest adaptations of the novelist’s output to date. When schoolteacher Johnny Smith awakens from a five-year coma, life and love have moved on. But he’s developed a psychic gift for prophecy – touching someone reveals their future to him. Cutting himself off from a past that is, for him, recent, his gift/curse becomes destiny when he shakes the hand of a corrupt politician. As you’d expect from Cronenberg, The Dead Zone’s strength is the time given for the characters to get under your skin. The sombre tone is relentless, the bleak landscapes and icy conditions reflecting Johnny’s inability to allow any warmth in until the emotionally devastating climax. The psychic episodes are both shocking and effective, but this is Cronenberg and King at their most compassionate. As the lovers separated by fate, Christopher Walken and the wonderful Brooke Adams have never been finer. It should have been a huge hit. And in the character of Martin Sheen’s megalomaniac politician who will say and do anything to become president, The Dead Zone is more relevant now than it ever was… | RM

54

Peter Jackson’s debut movie is about as far from Middle-earth as you can get. Made on a modest budget in his native New Zealand and starring Jackson himself in the leading role, Bad Taste is a rollercoaster of gory practical effects, almost stomach-churningly disgusting in its primitive explicitness – vomit drinking, aliens being hacked apart by chainsaws, buckets of blood, and dismemberment from the inside out are just a few of the ‘highlights’. If you ever wondered where the guy who made The Lord of the Rings got his start, you’re in for a real eye-opener! | CJ

53

Earth, 1987. Is that a synthesiser or a portal-opening key? Spoiler, it’s the latter, and in struts Dolph Lundgren as He-Man with his barely functioning loincloth, Frank Langella as Skeletor thinking he’s Macbeth at the Globe Theatre, and Meg Foster as the vicious ice queen Evil-Lyn. Bags of fun and accidentally camp in all the right places. | PP

52

Based on his own short story, The Hellbound Heart, first-time director Clive Barker serves up a creepy gothic horror, chock full of BDSM themes and visceral gore. In Pinhead, the leader of the kinky Cenobites, Barker created one of modern horror’s most outstanding monsters, taking his place in a pantheon the equal of Universal’s 1930s line-up. | AB

51

David Lynch’s masterpiece is a stylish thriller that stirs elements of film noir and psychological horror into a very weird, almost surreal mix. Kyle MacLachlan, with only Dune under his belt before taking the role of Jeffrey, is a wonderful cipher, but the show is stolen by Dennis Hopper’s batshit crazy Frank. Now it’s dark… | AB

50

The third instalment in George A Romero’s zombie series and the last for twenty years, Day of the Dead is a character piece, focusing on the occupants of a military camp doing experiments on the undead, which is nonetheless full to the brim with gore. Remade twice, with diminishing returns. | AB

49

Upon its release, many critics asked: “Why do a sequel to such a seminal classic as The Wizard Of Oz?”. That story was the first in a series of fourteen Oz novels all written by L Frank Baum. Return To Oz takes the follow-up novels, The Marvelous Land of Oz and Ozma of Oz, and creates this wonderful, underrated gem, which sees Dorothy (Fairuza Balk) taken to an asylum for electrotherapy to control her fantasies about the land of Oz. However, a tumble into a river sees Dorothy return to the Emerald City, which has been left in tatters by the Nome King (Nicol Willamson) and Princess Mombi (Jean Marsh). Dorothy must set out once again, this time with the help of Tik-Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead, and the Gump, dodging the terrifying Wheelers and crossing the Deadly Desert to save the Scarecrow, Tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the rest of Oz. Originally underperforming at the box office, Return to Oz has steadily become a cult classic, giving wider appreciation of L Frank Baum’s work and restoring the dark tone of the novels that was lost from the more sugary-sweet Judy Garland classic. | NB

48

John Carpenter followed up Halloween by dropping several of its cast members, including Jamie Lee Curtis, in a small Californian town which is under a curse. Exactly a hundred years after luring a shipload of lepers to their doom, the spirits are after vengeance on the descendants of the wreckers! | RP

47

Forget the atrocious Michael Bay Transformers series, 1986’s Transformers: The Movie is the only Robots-in-Disguise film that matters to most of us (okay, Bumblebee notwithstanding). Full of surprising brutality, shocking deaths, an all-powerful villain, and a soundtrack for the hair metal ages, this animated delight encapsulates everything that is right about the Transformers property. | AP

46

Monty Python meets 1984, via a Kafkaesque spearing of bureaucracy, in Terry Gilliam’s gloriously ridiculous masterpiece. Set in a dystopian metropolis, Jonathan Pryce plays government pencil pusher Sam Lowry. After a printing error results in the incarceration and death of cobbler Archibald Buttle, rather than suspected terrorist Archibald Tuttle, Sam is tasked with rectifying the cock-up. He tracks down Tuttle (Robert De Niro, showing that he can play comedy, whatever Little Fockers may have made you think), but is distracted by dreams of being a winged warrior saving a mysterious damsel, and his search for this damsel leads him into dire straits. Gilliam and his team conjured up a dark world, in which terrorist bombings are so commonplace that passers-by carry on their conversations and the government have no qualms about torturing those who act against them, but what makes Brazil stand the test of time is that it’s constantly hilarious, the surreal comedy working to emphasise the nightmare. The amount of detail put into the off-kilter world is relentlessly imaginative; try to catch every sign the characters pass – “Don’t suspect a friend, report him!” is a highlight. | KM

45

Loosely based on a novella by H.P. Lovecraft, Re-Animator is a glorious, Technicolor explosion of gore and body horror, starring the inimitable Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West, a medical student engaged in some very dangerous experiments to bring the dead back to life. From director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna, Re-Animator was one of a series of body horror classics that oozed out of the mid-1980s, standing atop a cadaverous pyramid that also contained From Beyond, Society, and Evil Dead II. In common with the latter of those three, Re-Animator was also very darkly funny, although it erred on the right side of a line that would later be obliterated by Frankenhooker. | AB

44

When video game maker Kevin Flynn hacks ENCOM, he’s transported into the digital realm of the mainframe computer, and a fight for survival ensues. Tron features some truly outstanding special effects thanks to Disney and the famous light cycles created by Syd Mead. Truly a movie ahead of its time. | SP

43

The ‘To Be Continued’ nature of the ending of the first film was originally intended as a throwaway gag, but Part II picked up the mantle and ran with it – and admirably so. Using the series’ time-travel mechanics to revisit the events of the first film from a new perspective was a masterstroke that essentially spawned its own subgenre of revisionist sequels, with franchises from Harry Potter to The Terminator making use of the concept. Perhaps most notably, Avengers: Endgame recently used the trope for the basis of its plot and even name-checked Back to the Future in return. Its legacy lives strong. | SH

42

Set in 1987’s version of what a game show would look like in the far-flung future of 2019, alleged convicts are pitted against celebrity ‘Stalkers’ in a fight to stay alive. Featuring some of the worst puns ever captured on VHS, this early Stephen King adaptation (under his pseudonym Richard Bachman) remains super fun to this day – who doesn’t like to watch colourful characters get dispatched in perpetually gruesome ways? (Special mention to the LED-lit, opera-singing, electric-shooting Dynamo!) | PP

41

Alex Cox made quite a few films with punk rockers, but none of his movies effortlessly captured the punk rock spirit so well as this sci-fi flick about a mysterious 1964 Chevrolet Malibu. Endlessly quotable and featuring Harry Dean Stanton in an iconic role, it only gets better with age. | NS

40

“One, two, Freddy’s coming for you. Three, four, better lock your door. Five, six grab your crucifix, seven, eight, gonna stay up late. Nine, ten… never sleep again.” The eighties unexpectedly brought us a golden age of American teen horror where the audience were equally repulsed by, scared of and rooting for their favourite killers, be they carrying machetes and wearing hockey masks or, in the case of Wes Craven’s seminal classic, a grimy striped jumper and a battered fedora. The late Freddy Krueger became the most unlikely of pop culture icons with his razor-sharp bladed glove and disfigured face as he relentlessly pursued his teen prey through their nightmares in revenge for being cornered and burned to death for his crimes by a mob of parents. It could only happen in the ‘80s – a gloating child murderer as a hero, and the subject of a spin-off cable TV series, comic books, posters, books, talking plush dolls and action figures. Put that squarely down to the cackling, fiendish charisma of Robert Englund, who carried on the role in a series of sequels, culminating in a cinematic smackdown with Crystal Lake’s Jason Voorhees. As Freddy gloated in the first of the sequels: “You are ALL my children now”… and he wasn’t wrong. | RP

39

It might not be Indiana Jones’ greatest adventure (he’d already had it), but there’s no doubt that it’s beloved by the many fans of the globe-trotting archaeologist. Not in the same league as Raiders, but Temple of Doom is every bit as iconic. ‘Trust me.’ | MN

38

One of the best rollercoasters of a horror film ever produced, this Spielberg-created, Tobe Hooper-directed funfair ride of thrills was a deserved success when released as a flip side to E.T. back in 1982. Its effectiveness lies in its setting. Poltergeist was different because its haunting happened in a normal suburban house, a domestic situation, not the gothic mansions or dark castles of traditional ghost stories. By rooting the tale of a child ripped by supernatural forces from the safety of her family in such a normal environment, Poltergeist thrilled because it felt like it could happen to us. And it was the family’s strong relationships and the performances behind them that gave heart to the frights and made us care about getting Carol Anne back from the other side… As for those frights, the film offered effects which were astonishing for their time, eerily beautiful in some cases, all-out gore in others. Tapping into the nightmares of children and adults (there’s a demonic toy clown under the bed/‘we’ve lost our daughter’), the film presented the traditional family unit, tore it apart and put it back together again via otherworldly means, and we loved it. Just don’t ask how they built all of those houses on top of the graves without putting in the foundations… | RM

37

In some alternate reality, Flash Gordon is a franchise as big as Star Wars. Dino De Laurentiis’ lifelong quest to find the ultimate money-spinner almost came to pass with this lavish piece of sci-fi. This high-camp yet gorgeous romp is memorable for its stonkingly good Queen soundtrack and for scenery-chewing performances from Ornella Muti, Brian Blessed, and Max von Sydow, this is an ‘80s movie in all its opulent splendour. | EF

36

Superman: The Movie remains the template for any superhero origin film, but Superman II suits just as well for sequels. The Richard Donner-directed sections work best – you believe a man can fly because Donner makes you believe it – but Richard Lester does inject a sense of fun to Zod’s revenge. | RM

35

Inspired by a 1960 cult classic from Roger Corman, 1986 saw the Frank Oz directed film release of the Broadway musical smash from Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. With a doo-wop, soul-y infused musical score, the film follows Seymour (Rick Moranis) seeing a turn in fortune and love with co-worker Audrey (Ellen Green) when he discovers a new breed of plant-life, which he dubs Audrey II. However, Seymour discovers the plant’s insatiable desire for blood, and with every drop it grows into something more and more monstrous. With a brilliant supporting role from Steve Martin as a sadistic dentist, Motown legend Levi Stubbs providing the voice of Audrey II, and an incredible feat of animatronic puppetry to create the ever-growing plant, this film has cult classic running through its branches. Famously, the theatrical release was controversial: Oz’s original ending, in keeping with the Broadway show where all of the cast dies and Audrey II takes over the world, full invasion-mode, was scrapped at the last minute in favour of a ‘happy ending’. However, over the years, fan pressure saw the demand for a director’s cut, which was finally released in 2012 with the true ending restored to its full glory! | NB

34

Disney’s child-friendly sci-fi classic stars Paul ‘Pee-Wee Herman’ Reubens as Max, a sentient robot/alien who abducts young David from Earth during his mission to harvest information from across the galaxy. A wonderful script, a fantastic ‘80s synthy soundtrack, and a huge helping of the usual Disney magic make this a treat for all ages! | CJ

33

Have a conversation with someone about which remakes are better than their original films, and it’s a safe bet that The Fly will be mentioned within the first breath. And rightly so – it’s loaded with incredible practical effects and good, old-fashioned sci-fi body-horror. But best of all, it stars Jeff Goldblum as Seth Brundle – later, Brundlefly – who, whether doing topless pull-ups or vomiting on his food while caked under multiple layers of makeup, is never anything less than utterly captivating. | SH

32

Tough guy wrestler ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper teaming with all-time genre great John Carpenter? In a movie that highlights the powers of consumerism and the influence of mass media? With one of the greatest fight sequences in cinema history? With one-liners a-plenty? Few movies scream ‘1980s!’ louder than They Live. | AP

31

After losing her love, a young farm girl is betrothed to the kingdom’s crown prince, only to become kidnapped by a trio of outlaws and pursued by a mysterious pirate. Standard yet somewhat surreal fantasy shenanigans ensue as everyone battles for what and who they love. | AM

30

It’s the year 1997. After a botched robbery of master credit cards and the death of his friend Fresno Bob, former combat vet and pilot Snake Plissken is sent to the maximum security prison of Manhattan, run by the United States Police Force. Here, our (anti) hero is given a deadly deal by the warden: rescue the kidnapped President of the United States within 22 hours or be killed by the micro-explosives implanted in his body… | WB

29

With an intoxicating, exuberant blend of fantasy and horror, adventure and romance, martial arts and comedy, John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China could well be the perfect film. Overstating it? Perhaps. But it’s difficult to think of something that’s missing. Carpenter’s Chinatown-set Western may well have been a box office failure upon release but has since become revered as a classic of ‘80s cinema. And then there’s the one-liners: “Okay. You people sit tight, hold the fort and keep the home fires burning. And if we’re not back by dawn… call The President.” We all need a little Jack Burton at times. | JT

28

Why is it that, despite placing sixth in STARBURST’s Best Zombie Movies to See Before You’re Undead feature way back in issue 405, Dan O’Bannon’s gleefully ghoulish monster movie remains criminally underrated in a culture obsessed with the genre it helped cement?! “Not a bad question, Burt.” | KH

27

Featuring the red hot double act of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery as father ‘n’ son, The Last Crusade is the second most beloved Indiana Jones movie. The Holy Grail story is fun, the set pieces are cool, our hero’s character is deepened, Julian Glover’s baddie is great, and the final shot is sublime. Spielberg gave Indy a fitting send-off here, or so we thought, as Harrison would don the fedora once again nearly two decades later and will again in 2021. Someone’s been sneakily sipping at that Holy Grail again… | JB

26

Bill and Ted’s plans for world domination with their band Wyld Stallyns are thrown into jeopardy when Ted’s dad threatens to send him to military school if he fails his history exam. But thanks to a time travelling phone box and a collection of kidnapped historical figures, there might just be a solution… Endlessly quotable with a fantastic cast and too many memorable moments to even begin to mention (although the shopping mall scene deserves special credit for being so ridiculously entertaining), this is an excellent adventure that stands up to repeat viewing even now. Party on, dudes! | CJ

25

Framed like a 116-minute Queen music video, Russell Mulcahy’s Highlander plays fast and loose with historical fact as a group of immortal’s cross millennia battling for ‘the Prize’. Look too closely and the plot holes are more preposterous than any of the accents on display, but that’s not really the point. Highlander is a celebration of fantastical ambition, of an idea that grew without the limitation of reasonable logic into an epic tale of heroes and villains. It shouldn’t have worked; it shouldn’t be any good at all. But hey… ’It’s a kind of magic.’ | JT

24

If there’s one thing the ‘80s did better than any other decade, it was superior sequels, and to defend that statement, we offer in evidence Mad Max 2, or in the USA, The Road Warrior. This is, arguably, one of the best examples of motorised mayhem to ever burn rubber on the screen. After a simple flashback, which in a matter of seconds recaps Mad Max (1979) and tells us all we need to know about the post-apocalyptic, dystopian world where fuel is everything, we’re off on a turbocharged rollercoaster of a film that never lets up for a second and became Australia’s most profitable movie at the time. The whole movie is practically a live-action 2000 AD strip. Road Warrior Max Rockatansky (Mel Gibson), formerly of the Main Force Patrol, is aimlessly driving around the bleak desert landscape, scavenging fuel where and when he can. Max is as burnt out as his vehicle, the last of the V8s. The loner soon becomes part of something bigger when he stumbles upon a refinery populated mainly by well-meaning pacifists under siege by a small army of homicidal marauders who want the precious fuel. Their leader, Lord Humungous and his henchman Wez (Vernon Wells) will stop at nothing to get what they want, and this culminates in a gloriously breath-taking eighteen-minute chase, rivalled only by director George Miller’s 2015 sequel, Mad Max: Fury Road. | RP

23

Tim Burton only had one film – the classic Pee Wee Herman’s Big Adventure – under his belt when he scored a massive hit with Beetlejuice. Starring Michael Keaton as the titular exorcist (who is very dead himself), it’s a Gothic kaleidoscope of scares, songs, and sight gags which has aged as well as the seemingly eternal Winona Ryder. | AB

22

Based on his manga of the same name, Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira is revered to this very day as one of the most ground-breaking pieces of animation ever committed to the silver screen. But not just a jaw-dropping visual delight, the plot of this future-set (2019!) sci-fi epic is a gripping rollercoaster of a ride. Set in Neo-Tokyo, biker gang leader Kaneda has to help bring down his childhood BFF Tetsuo; a BFF who has developed extraordinary and erratic powers after a motorcycle accident. Even now, Akira is still seen as the benchmark for animated offerings, such is its legacy and constant influence. And not just on animation, for Akira would go on to influence cinema, period, upon its release and through the subsequent decades. A big-budget live-action redo has long been in the works, and now Thor: Ragnarok’s Taika Waititi has been officially tasked with directing such a movie for 2021 – only this time out, the action will be switched over to New Manhattan. While many have been hesitant to see a new take on Akira, knowing Waititi will be on directing duties certainly has excitement and anticipation levels once again amped up at what may lie ahead for this iconic property. | AP

21

One of the most beloved and successful films ever made, E.T.’s story of a boy emotionally stranded after his parents’ divorce and a physically stranded alien finding and saving each other took the world by storm back in 1982. The summer blockbuster of its year in the States didn’t make it to the UK until Christmas, dodgy pirate videos aside, and excitement was tangible upon its release here. Its elegant direction (Spielberg has rarely been simpler), witty script, and pitch-perfect casting – Thomas, Barrymore, McNaughton, and Wallace are superb – made it an instant classic and, despite those pesky videos, nothing could stop its box office domination, its combination of intimate family drama, science fiction wonder and massive emotional wallop beating the likes of Blade Runner and The Thing into financial doom. Why? Simple. Any child who has sobbed over a lost pet dog and any adult who still tears up at the memory of it understands why those final scenes shred the heartstrings. E.T. is as pure a love story as has ever been put on film – the gaining, losing, and cherishing of it – and that humanity is something that should be alien to no one. | RM

20

There’s so much talent involved in Labyrinth – directed by Jim Henson, a screenplay by Terry Jones, produced by George Lucas, starring Jennifer Connelly, puppets from Henson’s Creature Shop. And then there’s David Bowie camping it up as Jareth the Goblin King, singing to a chorus of grotesque creatures as he joyously chucks a baby around. Connelly stars as fifteen-year-old Sarah, who impetuously wishes for baby brother Toby to be taken away by goblins. Unfortunately, her wish comes true. Sarah journeys into Jareth’s realm to rescue Toby, and is given thirteen hours to solve its labyrinth, full of puzzles, traps, and an MC Escher-themed hall of confusingly oriented stairs. While the story is simple, it has a strong central theme about growing up and remembering childhood joys. Labyrinth itself is a childhood joy worth revisiting, one of those films that function perfectly as children’s entertainment but which there’s zero shame in still getting enthralled by as an adult. The puppetry and effects are remarkable, their physicality and cheeky humour standing the test of time more than a lot of CG-heavy movies from more recent years. And, of course, there’s Bowie. All together now: you remind me of the babe… | KM

19

After moving to Santa Carla, brothers Michael (Jason Patric) and Sam (Corey Haim) soon discover that their new town has the unenviable reputation of being the murder capital of the world. But the area is a haven for vampires, after all. With the help of the Frog brothers (Corey Feldman and Jamison Newlander), Michael and Sam avoid becoming murder statistics themselves. Intended as Richard Donner’s follow up to The Goonies, the family adventure film originally featured child vampires, with the lead vamp being called Peter. The idea was that Peter Pan never grew up as he was actually Nosferatu! When production languished, Donner moved onto Lethal Weapon instead. He remained as executive producer, and Joel Schumacher eventually took over as director, but on the condition that the vamps were teenagers instead of kids as he thought it would be sexier and more interesting. Kiefer Sutherland, as the vampires’ supposed leader David, is the standout performance despite him having the fewest lines. Slick and stylish with a killer soundtrack and gorgeous cinematography, this comedy/horror hybrid hasn’t aged a day. Just like its undead antagonists! | CJo

18

It’s an absolute testament to An American Werewolf in London that, to this day, it’s so frequently pointed to as not only the go-to example of a post-modern deconstruction of werewolf mythology but also, arguably, the go-to example of werewolf movies, full stop. A true horror-comedy, combining genuine laughs with groundbreaking effects work and legitimate pathos, it’s the benchmark every werewolf movie made in the last 30 years has aspired to reach. | SH

17

Having plodded through 1979’s Star Trek: The Motionless Picture, the heroic crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise regrouped under director Nicholas Meyer and producer Harve Bennett in a scaled down adventure that stripped away the needless grandeur and pomposity of the previous film and embraced, instead, the franchise’s TV roots. This was the film that Trekkies and Trekkers had been yearning for, one that not only brought the bridge crew back into action but also dealt with the inevitable effects of our heroes getting older and perhaps not being as sprightly as they were back in the day. The returning Ricardo Montalban as the renegade genetic superman Khan from first season episode Space Seed was the cherry on top, as he chewed even more scenery than William Shatner in a glorious performance, literally alternating between purring his lines and spitting out paraphrases from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Add to all this one of our genre’s most emotional death scenes of a beloved character and, as quoted from Spock’s birthday gift to Kirk, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” There would be a further four sequels of varying quality – but none would’ve been possible without The Wrath of Khan, ultimately the first part of a trilogy which might collectively be the greatest Star Trek story ever told. | RP

16

Arnie’s rise to stardom was still on the ascendancy when this high concept, jungle-set man versus alien film was released. Originally played by Jean-Claude Van Damme, the alien itself was completely redesigned by Stan Winston and his brilliant special effects team after they realised that the suit was unworkable and looked hilariously bad! It features Arnie’s favourite catchphrase of his career, ‘Get to the chopper!’, and the Austrian had plenty of bodybuilding rivalries on set, particularly with Jesse Ventura and Carl Weathers. In further testosterone-fuelled rowdiness, an insurance company also had to hire a bodyguard to follow Sonny Landham around set to protect the rest of the cast and crew from his infamous violent outbursts! | JG

15

Where do you even start with The Evil Dead? It launched the careers of star Bruce Campbell and director Sam Raimi, spawned two sequels, a bunch of video games, and even a musical, and has remained so popular over the years that the movie was remade in 2013, followed by three seasons of the incredible Ash vs Evil Dead between 2015 and 2018. Quite simply an iconic masterpiece, The Evil Dead is an undisputed classic in the world of cult entertainment and still reigns supreme as one of the absolute best in its genre. | CJ

14

What may appear on first glance to be cheap action schlock is, in fact, one of the sharpest satires of the 1980s and an utter delight of violent mayhem. In a dystopian future (yes, another one – it’s almost as if the ‘80s wasn’t a particularly stable decade), the mayor of Detroit sells control of the police department to mega-corporation Omni Consumer Products. One of OCP’s experiments is to put mortally wounded cop Alex Murphy into a cyborg body. Christened RoboCop, Murphy begins dispensing serious justice to Detroit’s criminals, all while exposing the sinister scheming within OCP. You can see the influence of the Judge Dredd comics, as director Paul Verhoeven, in his first major Hollywood picture, mixes the brutal with the outright silly in a way that packs a hell of a punch. There’s some great worldbuilding, particularly in the cutaway adverts for things like a nuclear warfare-themed family board game. A movie which could only have been made in the ‘80s but which gets better with every watch, RoboCop spawned a couple of inevitably disappointing sequels and one inevitably disappointing remake, but the original remains a high point of sci-fi satire – worth buying for well more than a dollar. | KM

13

Anyone of a certain age will remember that, upon its release, The Shining was not regarded as the horror classic that it is today. Far from it. With many negative reviews, it was criticised for being too slow, for its OTT performances, and for its lack of real frights. It was famously hated by the novel’s author Stephen King and failed to pick up any Oscar nominations at all. Like the sense of dread the film exudes, The Shining took its time to garner its lofty position as one of the greatest horror films ever made. It’s difficult to know where such negativity came from. The Shining is a masterpiece of a film; any element of it could be held up as an example of how to get it right, from the ominously slow pacing to the terrifyingly formal framing, the intimidating production design, the haunting soundtrack, and the maniacal performances. Despite the brilliance of Nicholson and Duvall (hers is surely one of the great horror performances of all time), the real stars of The Shining are Kubrick, a steadycam, and the Overlook Hotel. Because, as terrifying a place as it might be, it somehow insists that you go back again and again. | RM

12

Along with Superman (1978), modern superhero films owe their entire existence to this groundbreaking take on the Dark Knight. Taking its tone from the works of Alan Moore and Frank Miller, fans today still enjoy the Gothic, mysterious take on Gotham City. However, the film had languished in development hell for a decade, jumping between directors such as Joe Dante (Gremlins) and Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), and actors such as Mel Gibson, Pierce Brosnan, and Bill Murray, only for it to land in the lap of relatively new director Tim Burton. Though the world lauded the now-iconic performance of Jack Nicholson as the Joker, fans were not originally set on Burton’s choice for the Caped Crusader: Michael Keaton. Widely viewed as a comic actor at the time, Keaton ignored the thousands of complaints from fans to quit, the controversy making the front page of The Wall Street Journal! In fact, Keaton gave an influential performance, ultimately silencing the nay-sayers. With a superb supporting cast in Kim Basinger, Michael Gough, Robert Wuhl, Pat Hingle, and Billy Dee Williams (the greatest live-action Two-Face we never had) and a soundtrack from Prince, Batman remains an absolute genre classic. | NB

11

A noirish sci-fi horror imbued from a fever dream that James Cameron had, this was the film that truly launched Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career, as he played a literal killing machine from the future, sent back in time to kill the mother of the leader of the resistance to Skynet’s uprising. It’s amazing how the final product balances wonderfully between a modern-day sci-fi dystopia and a straight-out slasher flick! Interestingly, the titular role almost went to co-star Lance Henriksen or, somewhat ironically, O.J. Simpson (although there were no gloves involved). | JG

10

Return of the Jedi had the trickiest task of any movie released in the 1980s, or any other decade come to think of it. Concluding the original Star Wars trilogy and following the biggest movie ever and the greatest ever sequel was a tall order, one that ILM and LFL were more than capable of tackling. With producer Gary Kurtz gone, the influence of Ralph McQuarrie less than on previous films, and a new director in Richard Marquand, it’s credit to the Maker George Lucas that the film was the success it was. Besides, who else could make you believe that the Ewoks could defeat the Empire? | MN

9

Six years after The Evil Dead’s release, Sam Raimi and co. revisited their original idea with their tongues planted firmly in their cheeks – Evil Dead II is one of those rare creatures, a movie that pokes fun at its source material and actually ends up being even better than the original. With more humour, more craziness, and a higher budget allowing for more (splat)terrific special effects, Raimi’s ideas are taken to a whole other level here. If you’ve never seen an Evil Dead film, get on it right now. And if you’ve only got time for one of them, make it this one. | CJ

8

It was well known that George Lucas was a fan of the movie serials that were common in the ‘30s and ‘40s; after all, Flash Gordon was a pivotal inspiration for Star Wars. But what about those hundreds of other serials with the wisecracking hero avoiding just about every kind of deadly trap and tomb imaginable? It’s okay, George had us covered and duly handed the director’s chair to his good friend Steven Spielberg, who knew exactly how to pull off the perfect homage. In 1936, archaeologist, lecturer, and adventurer Professor Henry Jones (Indiana or Indy to his friends) is sent on a mission by the U.S. government to retrieve the fabled Ark of the Covenant, which legend tells us carries the actual remains of the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments. The trouble is, Hitler has sent his Nazis to find them as well, hoping their supernatural properties will help him in his quest for world domination. Indy must team up with a feisty ex-lover (Karen Allen) and survive multiple brushes with death in snake pits, shootouts, fist fights, chases, and a journey on the outside of a U-boat (we assume it didn’t submerge, despite hearing an order to dive). All in a day’s work! As Indy says, “It ain’t the years honey, it’s the mileage.” | RP

7

Gremlins, along with Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, ensured that 1984 was scary as hell for kids, although the irresistibly cute little Mogwai did go a long way to balancing out the horror of Stripe and his mean-spirited group of Seven Dwarf-loving, old lady-killing alcoholics. The original script was reportedly much darker and leant more on the horror genre than the comedy moments that gave this the levity it needed. Probably the most harrowing Christmas story ever told, Gremlins stands out as a practical effects film that, some dodgy matte effects aside, still stands up against the might of CGI today. A Joe Dante classic. | JG

6

It was lightning in a bottle. A cast of Saturday Night Live alumni, Bill Murray deadpanning every single line to brilliant effect, Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis as his straight men, street-savvy horror, some genuine scares, the stunning Sigourney Weaver as the reluctant love interest, and cinema’s coolest ambulance conversion in ECTO-1! Our trio of university grant-sponging slackers have to go into business for themselves as paranormal investigators when they are thrown off campus for their antics. Five-star hotels with a Slimer infestation? The New York City library’s symmetrical book stacking problem? Giant marshmallow men in sailor hats looking to get rowdy? Demonic Armageddon? “We’re here to believe you!” Sadly, that lightning couldn’t be caught twice, and the long-delayed but inevitable 1989 sequel (tellingly absent from this list) couldn’t match up to the frantic genius of the original. Who ya gonna call? | RP

5

When did The Thing become one of the greatest suspense/horror/science fiction films of all time? Not back in 1982 when it froze like an ice tomb at the box office and garnered a host of dismissive reviews, that’s for sure! While the box office can be blamed on E.T., the reviews can’t – what were they thinking? Of course, much like the similarly fated The Shining and Blade Runner, the brilliant Carpenter masterpiece is just about as good as a genre film can be, still powerful enough to warrant the label of a genuine classic. Claustrophobic, intense, and insanely graphic, Carpenter’s depiction of a creature able to assimilate and imitate any living being, leaving a group of isolated men questioning who may or may not be human, revels in its premise and ramps up the paranoia until we, like the characters themselves, simply don’t know who to trust. Famed for its stunning physical makeup effects, Rob Bottin’s creations still astonish almost 40 years on, supported by a cast who buy into the fear 100%. | RM

4

Like many entries on this list, Blade Runner had a rough start in life too. A box office bomb, its lukewarm reception by the public and critics meant that Ridley Scott’s follow-up to his classic Alien could easily have been forgotten about had it not been for two things. The first? It’s simply a great film. A detective thriller set in a gorgeously realised future world, Blade Runner is science fiction at its very best – intellectually stimulating and visually thrilling. It’s probably one of the most beautiful looking films of all time. Add to this the complex relationships of what it means to be human acted out by an all-round superb cast, and Blade Runner becomes cinematic poetry. The second? The rise of home video saved many a film from obscurity, never more so than in Blade Runner’s case where its popularity via the home market helped establish first a cult following, then mainstream recognition of its genius. Ahead of its time, this influential classic has been seen everywhere ever since. Its themes still resonate, its look hasn’t dated, it’s as much a great cinematic work now as it ever was. | RM

3

Given that the time-travel genre had firmly existed for almost 100 years at the point of Back to the Future’s release, it’s remarkable that it remains, perhaps, the definitive time travel movie to this day. More than that, it’s a film so dense with set-ups and pay-offs that it’s frequently studied in screenwriting classes. That script was brought to life under the wonderful direction of Spielberg-alum, Robert Zemeckis, and two of the most fun, likeable lead actors we’ve ever had the pleasure of watching. It’s ironic that a film so firmly rooted in its period setting is ultimately such a timeless classic. | SH

2

Sir Ridley Scott’s 1979 Alien is rightfully viewed as one of the all-time greatest genre movies. Meshing sci-fi tropes with lashings of true terror, Ellen Ripley’s first encounter with the sinister Xenomorph was untouchable, right? As in, nothing could ever top this legendary picture? We mean, after all, making a sequel to such a well-received movie is an impossible task. Usually, for sure, but somehow Aliens managed to top its predecessor. Directed by James Cameron, this 1986 follow-up brilliantly took everything that was so pitch-perfect about Alien and took it to a whole other level. Again it’s Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley at the centre of the action, with badass Corporal Hicks, android Bishop and young Newt the key players joining her, and this time we even have a Xenomorph Queen causing all kinds of chaos. Not to mention, as well as again delivering a masterclass of sci-fi and horror, Aliens added more of an action skew to proceedings on its way to becoming known as one of the greatest sequel offerings ever made. Now, if only we could get that Neill Blomkamp-handled Ripley, Hicks and Newt follow-up that we keep hearing so much about… | AP

1

That the darkest hour in the original Star Wars trilogy has been voted as the biggest and the best of the ‘80s should come as no surprise. This film traumatised an entire generation of fans and has cemented its place in genre film history as firmly as a Corellian smuggler in a slab of carbonite. The Rebels had their day in Star Wars (before we started calling it A New Hope), but events were about to take a nasty, unexpected turn with the Empire, understandably sore at losing their prized Death Star, hunting down our happy band of swashbuckling heroes with their dastardly Imperial Probe Droids, and finding them on the ice world of Hoth. From that moment on, nothing would go the good guys’ way. Well, except for Luke undertaking some pretty rigorous Jedi training at the feet of the diminutive Master Yoda – but then, judge him by his size you should not. This is a prime example of a sequel being superior in every way to its predecessor, not only in execution, but also story advancement and the sheer feeling of gloom that pervades the film despite soul-soaring moments like the battle of Hoth, the asteroid sequence, and the approach to the cloud city of Bespin. Its dazzling pace left us little time to ponder how the asteroid space slug’s belly managed to have gravity – but maybe that’s nit-picking. John Williams’ score gave us the eternally memorable, yet grim and menacing Imperial March, and what better music to consider the Millennium Falcon continually misfiring, the betrayal and torture of our heroes, Han in carbonite, and Luke losing his hand? It’s a good thing we had no Internet back then to spoil the most unexpected family reunion in film history! | RP

As ever, the results here are final and we cannot take responsibility for any disagreements between friends and colleagues the feature may cause, but you can always let us know how wrong we were via our socials!

WORDS: ROBIN PIERCE, ROBERT MARTIN, ALAN BOON, ANDREW POLLARD, CHRIS JACKSON, SPLEENY DOTSON, SOL HARRIS, JACK BOTTOMLEY, KRIS HEYS, NICK BLACKSHAW, KIERON MOORE, MARK NEWBOLD, STEPHEN PIERCE, PHIL PERRY, ANDREW MARSHALL, JD GILLAM, CHRISTIAN JONES, NICK SPACEK, WHITNEY SCOTT BAIN