The Doctor Is In..

My new 5.5" 13th Doctor (Jodie Whittaker) has arrived and I couldn't be happier.

It's a magnificent figure, Character have done a great job.

I just wish they'd produce more figures for this range - as they did back in the halcyon days of the David Tennant era, when you could 5.5" scale figures for almost every person or monster of import from the current episodes.

Jodie's fine, but where's Graham, Yaz, and Ryan? And what about Tzim-Sha, Pting, The Ux, or even a reconnaissance dalek?

Shazam (I Keep Wanting To Call Him Captain Marvel) Is Looking For A Lair...

Raven Casts A Spell - Week Three...

Sarah Michelle Gellar with Freddie Prinze Jr

Life (And Death) Goals...

Sunday Specials...

Horror On TV: Dead Mine (2012)

Ever since I was introduced to Dungeons & Dragons in the late '70s, I've had a penchant for films that emulate the style of adventuring so prevalent in that roleplaying game.

Dead Mine, which popped up on the Horror Channel the other day, is - despite its contemporary setting - pure Dungeons & Dragons.

Yuppie businessman-turned-dilettante treasure hunter Warren Price (Les Loveday) leads a group of adventurers to an isolated Indonesian island in search of the legendary Yamashita's Gold, which he and researcher Rie (Miki Mizuno) believe is hidden in an abandoned World War II Japanese bunker.

Attacked by a band of heavily-armed local pirates, Price and his team find themselves trapped in the bunker... but they are not alone.

The bunker turns out to be far more extensive than first imagined and is home to a variety of experimental horrors left over from the war.

Dead Mine is definitely a film you don't want to think about too much, as that's when the cracks in the story start to show themselves.

As well as gaping plot holes, the film also suffers from bizarre editing choices such as having a major character simply disappear in the closing moments of the movie. He's someone we've become attached to through the 87-minute film and then suddenly he is gone without being granted the decency of an on-screen death scene.

Basically a mash-up of The Descent (but with guns) and Outpost, Dead Mine is far from original, only really scoring kudos for its mise-en-scène and monster make-up.

My primary investment in this film comes from its overt connections to the granddaddy of roleplaying games.

The bunker is, to all intents and purposes, an old school "dungeon", complete with solid rooms and corridors (just overlook the electric lighting), roughly dug 'secret' tunnels, and natural cave formations, populated by a host of distinctly different monsters.

Gamesmasters, with an hour-and-a-half to kill, and seeking cheap and cheerful inspiration for their next dungeon, could do worse than tracking down this cheesy flick on the hundreds of TV channels out there.

Horror DVD Of The Week: Get Out (2017)

Some of the best movies - and especially horror movies - are those you go into with as little foreknowledge as possible.

And Get Out is certainly one where my spoilerphobia worked in my favour.

Although Jordan Peele's lauded tale was released into the wild quite some time ago, beyond the initial set-up I knew absolutely nothing about where this freaky story was heading.

Aspiring photographer Chris Washington (Black Panther's Daniel Kaluuya), a young African-American, has been dating his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage (Allison Williams), for five months and the time has come for him to meet her parents.

This involves a road trip to their country estate, but once they arrive Chris starts to sense something strange beneath their superficial friendliness.

There's the odd behaviour of the family's two black employees - Walter (Marcus Henderson), the groundskeeper, and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), the housekeeper as well as the fact that Rose had 'forgotten' that this weekend was a traditional garden party for the Armitage's large circle of well-to-do friends.

At first it looks as though Peele is laying down a very obvious trail of breadcrumbs, especially when the matriarch of the Missy (The 40 Year-Old Virgin's Catherine Keener) - a hypnotherapist - is introduced, but that's only half the story as the trail takes a sudden sharp turn into crazy town in the latter part of this powerful metaphor for post-Obama racism in the United States.

Peele's pacing is spot-on, beautifully balancing normal and abnormal, light and shade, in a 100-minute movie that's almost as much a humorous satire as an out-and-out horror show.

While not as gonzo as 1989's body horror classic Society, this is definitely sailing in the same choppy waters.

Up until the very strange developments in the film's final act, the set-up and tone of Get Out also reminded me strongly of some of my favourite British rural horror movies, which often centre around a lone protagonist who finds himself seemingly trapped in an alien culture.

Superbly acted and tightly directed, Get Out is definitely a film to watch before the twists and turns are spoiled for you.

But then you'll probably want to watch it again to pick up on the clues you missed along the way.