Coming soon to cinemas and DVD - The Dinosaur Project

Dino fans of all ages - especially the kids - will be thrilled to learn of a new prehistoric monster movie on its way to cinemas in the UK for a limited theatrical run on August 10th before hitting DVD/Blu Ray on 27th August. This exciting found footage-style movie...wait, don't run away...tells of the exploits of a group of Sky News reporters who travel to the Congo following rumours of the existence of dinosaurs in search of the fabled Mokele Mbembe to find out the truth once and for all... 'World of Stuff' brings you this exclusive clip from the movie...

DVD Review: Vanishing on 7th Street

Stay in the light...

Panic in Detroit when a massive power cut plunges the city into total darkness and when the sun rises all that remains is a handful of survivors, loads of piles of empty clothing - the bodies within having disappeared - abandoned traffic and mysterious malevolent shadows which creep out of the darkness to engulf the remaining light.

We all love a good apocalypse movie. Some of us even like the bad ones (I appear to be one of the few people in the civilised world who can manage a good word or two for this year's The Darkest Hour) but sometimes the genre throws out a film which isn’t especially bad nor especially outstanding. Vanishing on 7th Street is just there, a variation on a theme directed by Brad (The Machinist) Anderson who, to his credit, is more interested in mood, atmosphere and generating an air of creeping terror based on just about everyone’s underlying fear of the dark than wowing the crowd with glitzy visuals and ooh-ahh FX money shots. But as a result Vanishing on 7th Street commits the cardinal sin of being really, really dull and, fatally for a low budget would-be psychological drama about people dealing with extreme crisis, populated by entirely uninteresting and unidentifiable stock characters.

Star Wars favourite (I’m joking) Hayden Christensen plays young news reporter Luke who wakes to find that the world has changed overnight and eventually he gravitates towards fellow survivors Paul (Leguizamo), a theatre projectionist, Rosemary (Newton), a physical therapist and a young lad called James (Latimore) who has holed up in his father’s bar which has its own generator. Not surprisingly given the situation they find themselves in they’re a pretty dour and humourless bunch but they try to work together to find a way out of the city in the hope of finding a refuge they believe exists in Chicago, quickly realising that the creeping darkness is their enemy and that, with their various light supplies fading, it’s really only a matter of time before they’re plunged into an eternal darkness and they cease to exist.

The movie‘s low ($10 million) budget has forced both director and writer to be especially creative in their realisation of this unexplained, presumably global catastrophe and there are some good ideas thrown into the mix here and there. The encroaching shadows may evoke memories of a 2008 Doctor Who story but Vanishing takes it a little further by suggesting that the darkness has a sentience as well as a shape (it’s occasionally glimpsed as shadowy featureless figures lurking in the background or else grasping arms creeping into the light), manipulating the emotions of its victims to lure them out of their protective arcs of light. It’s also refreshing that none of our featured survivors are superheroes or macho men who survive against all the odds - no-one’s safe here - and the film works best when it poses questions it has no intention of answering.

Then problem is that, unsurprisingly perhaps, Vanishing is such a dark and gloomy film. Naturally, much of the action takes place in the half-light or in some darkened, ill-lit room; it’s all terribly atmospheric but it makes the film difficult for the viewer to immerse himself in because the picture is so dark and underlit it’s really hard to tell what’s going on most of the time. Lucas Vidal’s score tries to work the tension of the scenes where the survivors are racing to avoid the darkness but when all we can see are smudges moving about in the gloom holding a torch in front of their faces it’s hard to work up much enthusiasm much less give a damn.

Anderson’s done his best here and his direction is never less than inventive and whilst some might find it refreshing to see a movie apocalypse not dominated by outlandish stunts and extreme special effects, Vanishing stumbles too far in the other direction and offers little to hold the interest beyond the ingenuity of its scenario and one or two of its often-underdeveloped ideas.

Vanishing on 7th Street is available now on DVD in the UK

Where the Hell are you?....and the return of Starburst Magazine...

You may be wondering (or you may not, you may well not give much of a damn) what's been happening with this Blog this year as it's hardly been updated and I've been conspicuous by my absence. Without boring you, there have been several reasons why the World of Stuff has remained Stuffless this year. Faaamily reasons, work reasons and the simple fact that I've been reacquainted with an old friend. Many of you may remember 'Starburst Magazine', the UK's longest-running magazine devoted to sci-fi/fantasy/horror etc which ran from 1978 until about two years ago when the company which published it went bankrupt. I wrote for the Magazine from 1986 to 1996 and I was, to say the least, thrilled when I heard the Magazine was to be relaunched as an internet only facility earlier this year. I contacted the new Editor who massaged my sleeping ego and asked me if I'd be interested in resuming duties for the magazine. So since May this year I've been writing pretty much exclusively for www.starburstmagazine.com - my old TV Zone monthly column is back and I've been contributing reviews of new films, books and DVDs and even a little bit of fiction. This, obviously, was generally the meat of this particular site so I've let things grow fallow here as I've concentrated on contributing to 'Starburst'.

But it seems to have paid off as 'Starburst' will, next February, be returning to the print format. This is thrilling news for all of us working on the Magazine and I know that the Editor and his team are working flat out to ensure that this is the brightest, boldest and most eclectic sci-fi magazine in an increasingly-shrinking marketplace. This doesn't mean the World of Stuff will be redundant and I'm looking to recommence posting in the next few weeks but I would encourage you, if you're interested in the Magazine, if you've never heard of it, if you have fond memories of it or for any other reason, clink on the title of this article which will direct you straight to the subscription page, and at least consider taking out a subscription to what could be an exciting new genre magazine. The Magazine will be an independent publication, it won't have the backing of the big publishing houses but that, if nothing else, makes this an exciting new proposition and it really needs YOUR help if it's to succeed. So take a look - you can just subscribe to one issue if you fancy taking a chance - and help give a new/old friend the chance to find a whole new audience in the 21st century.

Merry Christmas and all that!!!

Book Preview: Elisabeth Sladen

Pretty much essential reading, this autobiography of the much-missed Elisabeth Sladen, the legendary Sarah Jane Smith from 'Doctor Who' and her own children's spin-off 'The Sarah Jane Adventures' (many episodes of which put modern adult dramas to shame), is released on November 17th courtesy of Arum press. Foreword is by former Doctor David Tennant.

Sci-Fi Classic 'Silent Running' comes to Blu Ray in November....

Three years after helping to achieve some of the most amazing imagery in cinema history with 2001: A Space Odyssey, special effects
maestro Douglas Trumbull made an auspicious directorial debut at age 29 with the environmentally themed science fiction classic Silent
Running.

In the distant future, plant life on our planet is extinct. Remaining specimens are cultivated in vast greenhouse-like domes orbiting in space.
Bruce Dern (Marnie, Coming Home, The 'burbs, Monster) stars as Freeman Lowell, dedicated botanist aboard the "Valley Forge", awaiting
the call to refoliate Earth – despite the scorn of his crewmates. When an order comes to instead destroy the domes and return home,
Lowell takes matters into his own hands, beginning a long and lonely voyage into the unknown.
With its
remarkable special effects (especially the robot drones Huey, Dewey, and Louie); glorious score (including songs performed by
Joan Baez); memorable sound effects (created by Joseph Byrd from the cult band The United States of America); a screenplay co-written
by Michael Cimino (The Deer Hunter) and Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues), and an impassioned central performance from Dern, Silent
Running remains a uniquely contemplative and haunting adventure that continues to make hippies of young children, even today.

EXTENSIVE SPECIAL BLU-RAY EDITION FEATURES, ALL NEW TO THE UK:
• New high-definition master in its original aspect ratio • A host of extras to be announced nearer the release date • PLUS: A lavish
booklet featuring rare production imagery, and more!
Acknowledged as a major influence on Pixar's WALL-E and Duncan Jones' Moon, and directed by Douglas Trumbull, the special effects
genius behind 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Blade Runner, and, most recently, The Tree of Life The Masters of
Cinema Series is proud to present a new Blu-ray special edition of Silent Running to celebrate the film's 40th anniversary. Released on 14
November 2011.

Coming soon....Torchwood

Torchwood: Miracle Day, the new 10-part BBC/Starz co-production has literally just finished filming. We've seen the teasers and the promo photos but here's a quick...very quick...new trailer which shows just a bit more actual footage.

Torchwood: Miracle Day is expected to start on Friday 9th July at 9pm on BBC1 in the UK.

Elisabeth Sladen

Another shining light in the world of Dr Who has just gone out...