Review, buy General: Human Experiments, The Mutations (1973), Star Trek The Next Generation 84 : Lower Decks / Thine Own Self [1994], Star Trek The Next Generation 51 : Redemption II / Darmok [1991], White Zombie [1932], The Mummy [1959], Monster City, Wishmaster [1998], To the Devil A Daughter [1976], Farscape - Season 3 - Vol. 3 [1999], Requiem For A Vampire [1971], Star Trek The Next Generation 18 : The Measure Of A Man / The Dauphin [1988], Star Trek The Next Generation 63 : The Inner Light / Time's Arrow [1992], The Exorcist [1974], Lexx - Vol. 3.2 - 3.04 Boomtown / 3.05 Gondola [1999], Lifeforce [1985], Silver Bullet [1985], Weekend [1968], Santa Sangre [1990], Funhouse [1981]

Hammer's remake of the horror classic has been accused of falling between the simple integrity of the Karloff original and the swashbuckling, SFX romanticism of the 1998 version, but it has real strengths of its own. Principal among these is Christopher Lee, haughty and brutal as the High Priest and sorrowful, pathetic and menacing as the living mummy he has become for his crimes; his eyes convey a depth of dumb suffering and passion. Peter Cushing has rarely been so charismatic and elegant as he is in his role as the lame Egyptologist Banning, and veteran Felix Aylmer is touching as his doomed father. In the underwritten role of Banning's wife, with her strange resemblance to the dead Egyptian princess whose unearthing the Mummy is avenging, Yvonne Furneaux has at once charm and authority-she is plausibly a woman who might stop the avenging Mummy in its tracks. Terence Fisher directs with his usual efficiency and Gerard Schurmann contributes an atmospheric score, as effective in its high Egyptian pomp as in its sense of the English countryside. -Roz Kaveney.

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Review Manga Entertainment / Monster City

Monster City (Manga Entertainment)

Actors & Directors

Hiromi Tsuru
Yûsaku Yara
Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Kiyoshi Kobayashi
Ichirô Nagai
Hideyuki Hori

Release date: 1994-06-13
Run time: 77 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Monster City / Manga Entertainment:

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Review 4 Front Video / Wishmaster [1998]

Wishmaster [1998] (4 Front Video)

Actors & Directors

Robert Kurtzman
Andrew Divoff
Robert Englund
Tony Todd
Tammy Lauren

Release date: 2002-07-01
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: ~~£5.99~~
Price: £2.24

Review Wishmaster [1998] / 4 Front Video:

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Review Warner Home Video / To the Devil A Daughter [1976]

To the Devil A Daughter [1976] (Warner Home Video)

Actors & Directors

Richard Widmark
Peter Sykes
Nastassja Kinski
Christopher Lee
Denholm Elliott
Honor Blackman

Release date: 2000-05-01
Run time: 89 min.
RRP: ~~£5.99~~
Price: £7.10

Review To the Devil A Daughter [1976] / Warner Home Video:

Hammer's To the Devil a Daughter was the last film made by the once great studio. Clearly ailing, Hammer again adapted a novel by Dennis Wheatley, the author behind one of their greatest successes, The Devil Rides Out (1967). Unfortunately for the studio, films such as Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973) had, in the intervening decade, radically changed horror cinema. With American star Richard Widmark echoing Gregory Peck's role in the far more polished The Omen (1976), the film seemed, rather than setting the pace as Hammer once had, to be very much jumping on the 1970's occult band-wagon. Christopher Lee is the satanic ex-communicated priest whose coven plan to incarnate the ancient demon Ashteroth, while a supernaturally beautiful Nastassja Kinski demonstrates the same willingness to disrobe as in Cat People (1982). Even so, this lacklustre, misogynistic film couldn't compete with Carrie and Suspiria (both also 1976) and Hammer thereafter concentrated on TV productions. Surprisingly, director Peter Sykes' next film, Jesus (1979), as well as being the most seen and internationally distributed film ever (with an audience of over two billion by 2000), is also the most faithful portrayal of Christ yet committed to celluloid. -Gary S. Dalkin.

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Review Contender Entertainment Group / Farscape - Season 3 - Vol. 3 [1999]

Farscape - Season 3 - Vol. 3 [1999] (Contender Entertainment Group)

Actors & Directors

Geoff Bennett (II)
Ian Watson (II)
Tony Tilse

Release date: 2002-04-15
Run time: 135 min.
RRP: ~~£12.99~~
Price: £2.89

Review Farscape - Season 3 - Vol. 3 [1999] / Contender Entertainment Group:

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Review Salvation Films / Requiem For A Vampire [1971]

Requiem For A Vampire [1971] (Salvation Films)

Actors & Directors

Philippe Gasté
Marie-Pierre Castel
Jean Rollin
Mireille Dargent
Dominique
Louise Dhour

Release date: 2000-05-01
Run time: 76 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Requiem For A Vampire [1971] / Salvation Films:

The films of French cult director Jean Rollin belong to a genre all their own, horror fantasies that plunge viewers into wild fantasy worlds out of time and place in which figures (usually nude women) wander a deserted landscape. In Requiem for a Vampire, two school girls in painted clown faces and goofy polka-dot garb shoot out of the back of a speeding car on a desolate country road. For 45 minutes, we follow the adventures of the braided young nymphs as they ditch the car, wipe off the clown white, and change into miniskirts, with nary a word spoken. They dreamily wander through a graveyard (where one falls into a freshly dug grave and is buried alive!) and into a castle, where they are suddenly set upon by cloaked figures and brutish henchmen and made the servants of a tired, sorry-looking vampire desperately attempting to perpetuate his race with fresh blood. The lyrical first half, with its often beautiful and bizarre imagery, gives way to an astonishingly brutal scene in which the henchman molest the women they have chained naked in their dungeon. The film bounces back and forth between surreal poetry and kinky decadence (which also includes scenes of sadomasochism and plenty of gratuitous nudity), but Jean Rollin's ethereal mood and fairy-tale imagery gives the largely wordless film an eerie beauty and the surreal logic of a waking dream. -Sean Axmaker.

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Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Star Trek The Next Generation 18 : The Measure Of A Man / The Dauphin [1988]

Star Trek The Next Generation 18 : The Measure Of A Man / The Dauphin [1988] (Paramount Home Entertainment)

Actors & Directors

Jaime Hubbard
Robert Scheerer
Brian Brophy
Whoopi Goldberg
Paddi Edwards
Patrick Stewart
Rob Bowman

Release date: 1991-08-12
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: ~~£10.99~~
Price: £0.99

Review Star Trek The Next Generation 18 : The Measure Of A Man / The Dauphin [1988] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

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Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Star Trek The Next Generation 63 : The Inner Light / Time's Arrow [1992]

Star Trek The Next Generation 63 : The Inner Light / Time's Arrow [1992] (Paramount Home Entertainment)

Actors & Directors

Marina Sirtis
Gates McFadden
Michael Dorn
Jonathan Frakes
LeVar Burton
Les Landau

Release date: 1993-03-15
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: ~~£10.99~~
Price: £5.99

Review Star Trek The Next Generation 63 : The Inner Light / Time's Arrow [1992] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

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Review Warner Home Video / The Exorcist [1974]

The Exorcist [1974] (Warner Home Video)

Actors & Directors

Jason Miller
William Friedkin
Max von Sydow
Kitty Winn
Ellen Burstyn
Lee J. Cobb

Release date: 1999-10-25
Run time: 117 min.
RRP: ~~£6.99~~
Price: £0.01

Review The Exorcist [1974] / Warner Home Video:

Director William Friedkin was a hot ticket in Hollywood after the success of The French Connection, and he turned heads (in more ways than one) when he decided to make The Exorcist as his follow-up film. Adapted by William Peter Blatty from his controversial best-seller, this shocking 1973 thriller set an intense and often-copied milestone for screen terror with its unflinching depiction of a young girl (Linda Blair) who is possessed by an evil spirit. Jason Miller and Max von Sydow are perfectly cast as the priests who risk their sanity and their lives to administer the rites of demonic exorcism, and Ellen Burstyn plays Blair's mother, who can only stand by in horror as her daughter's body is wracked by satanic disfiguration. One of the most frightening films ever made, The Exorcist was mysteriously plagued by troubles during production, and the years have not diminished its capacity to disturb even the most stoical viewers. -Jeff Shannon.

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Review Contender Entertainment Group / Lexx - Vol. 3.2 - 3.04 Boomtown / 3.05 Gondola [1999]

Lexx - Vol. 3.2 - 3.04 Boomtown / 3.05 Gondola [1999] (Contender Entertainment Group)

Actors & Directors

Stefan Ronowicz
Bruce McDonald
Stephen Manuel

Release date: 2000-08-07
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: ~~£12.99~~
Price: £1.99

Review Lexx - Vol. 3.2 - 3.04 Boomtown / 3.05 Gondola [1999] / Contender Entertainment Group:

A "Light Universe" and a "Dark Zone" keep good and bad apart for the characters of Lexx, even though it's often hard to tell the difference between the two in this offbeat and unique sci-fi show that delights in its own nastiness. With flashes of nudity and surgical gore, and a collection of extreme hairstyles and accents, the show's overall look is often akin to a sci-fi Eurotrash. Aboard the stolen 10-kilometre-long spaceship Lexx (designed to look like a dragonfly) are the "Dirty Three-and-a-Half": insufferable coward Stanley H. Tweedle (Brian Downey), the Edward Scissorhands clone and 2,000 years-dead Kai (Michael McManus), decapitated and lovestruck robot head 790 (voiced by writer Jeffrey Hirschfield), and the skimpily wardrobed Zev (Eva Habermann), replaced in Season Two by Xev (Xenia Seeberg). A disregard both for genre conventions and good taste makes the show a constant series of surprises: by the time of the third season, the expression "anything goes" had long passed being understatement. On this tape: After a fleeting glimpse of Ralph (Withnail & I) Brown at the end of this season's first volume, his character Duke suddenly comes to the fore in "Boomtown". These towns teach us more and more about the lifestyles on the two planets, and since this one is essentially a non-stop orgy Stan decides Water is the planet for him! (If the nudity seemed gratuitous in "Gametown", that's nothing in comparison. ) Ending on a shock appearance by Kai (no spoilers here), a balloon chase leads straight into "Gondola". Much of the running-time of this episode is spent anguishing over who should be sacrificed to make the balloon lighter, but the meat of the show is to be found in the debate about whether there is an afterlife. -Paul Tonks.

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Lifeforce [1985] (2 Entertain Video)

Actors & Directors

Frank Finlay
Peter Firth
Patrick Stewart
Steve Railsback
Mathilda May
Tobe Hooper

Run time: 97 min.
RRP: ~~£10.99~~
Price: £7.55

Review Lifeforce [1985] / 2 Entertain Video:

Director Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce, the follow-up to his most popular hit Poltergeist, is a film that must be seen to be believed. That's not really a compliment, though, since Lifeforce isn't much of a movie when all the sound and fury is over. But you've got to admit there's something crazily admirable about a picture that starts out as a science fiction mission to Halley's comet, turns into an alien-invasion thriller featuring a beautiful naked woman (Mathilda May) who's a vampire from space and escalates into an end-of-the-world disaster flick. Armed with a big budget and a special effects crew led by Star Wars pioneer John Dykstra, Hooper and Alien cowriter Dan O'Bannon have whipped up a concoction that's got everything anyone could ask of a horror movie-from zombies running amok in London to rotting corpses and energy bolts that signal the apocalypse to come. Keeping it all together is Steve Railsback as the Halley-mission survivor who holds the key to mankind's salvation-but what fun is saving the world when you could be seduced by a sexy naked space vampire? Check out Lifeforce to see how it all turns out. -Jeff Shannon.

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Review 4 Front Video / Silver Bullet [1985]

Silver Bullet [1985] (4 Front Video)

Actors & Directors

Megan Follows
Everett McGill
Daniel Attias
Corey Haim
Robin Groves
Gary Busey

Release date: 2000-09-11
Run time: 90 min.
RRP: ~~£5.99~~
Price: £2.50

Review Silver Bullet [1985] / 4 Front Video:

Silver Bullet is a generic, by-the-numbers Stephen King film with a Stephen King screenplay adapted from an earlier novella. Back in the innocent days of 1976-the age of innocence gets later every year-the town of Tarker's Fall finds itself in the grip of mass hysteria when something starts tearing people apart. Only a crippled child Martie (Corey Haim) works out the truth, which is that the new pastor is a werewolf. Eventually he manages to convince his supercilious sister Janey and his unreliable drunk Uncle Red (Gary Busey) and there is the usual confrontation involving a silver bullet melted down from the children's religious jewellery; the title also refers to the boy's motorised wheelchair. The film neglects interesting possibilities-the lynch-mob mentality that takes over the town fizzles after the major vigilantes are killed, the pastor tries to justify the killings to himself-in favour of stock ultra-violent confrontations and extended metamorphoses; its major strength is a familiar King theme, the helplessness of being a child in a world full of people who will not listen to you. On the DVD: The DVD comes with a director's commentary by Daniel Attias and dubbed versions in German, French and Italian. The soundtrack has Dolby sound which brings out the stylised fairy-tale elements in the score and the widescreen picture is presented in 2. 35:1 anamorphic ratio. The sometimes muddy-looking night-scenes are balanced by brisk pastoral daylight scenes that have their own innocence. -Roz Kaveney.

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