Actors & Directors
- Richard Van Allan
- Felicity Palmer
- Eric Idle
Price: £10.99
Review Mikado [1987] / Thames Video:
![Review Warner Home Video / The Wicker Man [1973]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JPNT4A8GL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Christopher Lee
- Edward Woodward
- Ingrid Pitt
- Robin Hardy
- Britt Ekland
- Diane Cilento
Run time: 84 min.
Creator: David Pinner
RRP: £6.99
Price: £3.95
Review The Wicker Man [1973] / Warner Home Video:It must be stressed that despite the fact that it was produced in 1973 and stars both Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland, The Wicker Man is not a Hammer Horror film. There is no blood, very little gore and the titular Wicker Man is not a monster made out of sticks that runs around killing people by weaving them into raffia work. Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Howie, a virginal, Christian policeman sent from the Scottish mainland to investigate the disappearance of young girl on the remote island of Summer Isle. The intelligent script by Anthony Schaffer, who also wrote the detective mystery Sleuth (a film with which The Wicker Man shares many traits), derives its horror from the increasing isolation, confusion and humiliation experienced by the naïve Howie as he encounters the island community's hostility and sexual pagan rituals, manifested most immediately in the enthusiastic advances of local landlord's daughter Willow (Britt Ekland). Howie's intriguing search, made all the more authentic by the film's atmospheric locations and folkish soundtrack, gradually takes us deeper and deeper into the bizarre pagan community living under the guidance of the charming Laird of Summer Isle (Lee, minus fangs) as the film builds to a terrifying climax with a twist to rival that of The Sixth Sense or Fight Club. -Paul Philpott.
![Review 2 Entertain Video / Willow [1988]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WZWN0RK8L._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Ron Howard
- Warwick Davis
- Jean Marsh
- Joanne Whalley
- Val Kilmer
- Patricia Hayes
Run time: 120 min.
Creator: Bob Dolman
RRP: £4.99
Price: £8.89
Review Willow [1988] / 2 Entertain Video:Billed as a fantasy to please kids and adults alike in 1988, Willow was revolutionary in its day. Not only did it have a vertically challenged actor (Warwick Davis) as its leading man, it also set new standards for special effects, using the first known "morfing" (sic) systems. To top it all off it combined the talents of two of Hollywood's biggest names, director Ron Howard and writer-producer George Lucas, and changed Val Kilmer's destiny, influencing both his career and love life. In theory all this should have added up to a rip-roaring success of a film. Alas, the end result has been unkindly if accurately described as the bastard son of Lord of the Rings, with Star Wars as its doting mother. The plot line (plucky young man sent off on a quest to protect something which could change the reign of evil) has obvious links to Tolkien's classic; Kilmer's Madmartigan (the diamond in the rough) has distinct similarities to Hans Solo. And with the great advances in modern cinemas special effects, Willow's ferocious two-headed dragons now look like something out of 1963's Jason and the Argonauts. However, even though it marked the end of the road for fantasy films in the 1980s, Willow's combination of locations, set design and groundbreaking SFX set new standards and influenced much modern cinema, including Peter Jackson's epic Lord of the Rings. All in all, this is a movie with its heart, soul and magic in the right place. On the DVD: Willow is brought up to date on DVD with this excellent special effects enhancing anamorphic transfer of the original 2. [+]35:1 screen ratio; the Dolby 5. 1 surround sound boosts the power behind Badmorda's roar as well as spotlighting James Horner's swashbuckling score. A lively commentary is offered by Warwick Davis, although he has a tendency to dwell on his own musings rather than the film as a whole. Other features include "The Making of the Adventure", which is a standard TV behind-the-scenes documentary/advert and a wealth of TV spots, trailers and photos. By far the most interesting feature is the "Morf to Morphing: The Dawn of Digital Film" documentary including interviews with George Lucas, Ron Howard and Dennis Muren (the renowned special effects guru) on the creation of morphing and its influence on later movies. -Nikki Disney.
Actors & Directors
- Carolyn Purdy-Gordon
- Karen Christenfeld
- Ken Foree
- Ted Sorel
- Barbara Crampton
- Jeffrey Combs
Run time: 81 min.
RRP: £6.99
Price: £24.99
Review From Beyond [1986] / 2 Entertain Video:
Release date: 1995-05-01
Run time: 96 min.
Price: £11.99
Review Doctor Who - The Stones Of Blood / 2 Entertain Video:
Release date: 1994-07-11
Run time: 51 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £12.99
Review Devil Man - The Birth / Manga Entertainment:
Actors & Directors
- Omri Katz
- Bette Midler
- Thora Birch
- Kathy Najimy
- Sarah Jessica Parker
- Kenny Ortega
Run time: 92 min.
Creator: Neil Cuthbert
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.98
Review Hocus Pocus (1993) (Disney) / Walt Disney Home Video:This big, fat theatrical bomb has a lot going for it. There's the three leads, Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy and Sarah Jessica Parker, playing three resurrected witches who wreak havoc on Salem, Massachusetts, 300 hundred years after they were hung. There's music, special effects, and magic. There's a surprisingly horror-filled plot. Whoops, hold up on that last one. It's probably the extremes that this film goes to (displaying a Disney label), such as the witches sucking the life out of a little girl in the first five minutes, that put the brakes on any success for Hocus Pocus. Older children, however, in the 8 and up range should get a kick out of all the weird goings-on. It's a good measure of Halloween thrills and chills. -Keith Simanton.
Actors & Directors
- Douglas Camfield
- Patrick Troughton
Run time: 146 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £4.70
Review Doctor Who - The Invasion [1968] / 2 Entertain Video:
Actors & Directors
- Gillian Anderson
- David Duchovny
Run time: 45 min.
Creator: Chris Carter
RRP: £79.99
Price: £12.89
Review The X Files : Season 2 Collector's Edition / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
![Review Tartan Video / Ring (1998) [2000]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FAH8N2XEL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Nanako Matsushima
- Hitomi Sato
- Hiroyuki Sanada
- Yuko Takeuchi
- Miki Nakatani
- Hideo Nakata
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Kôji Suzuki
RRP: £15.99
Price: £24.95
Review Ring (1998) [2000] / Tartan Video:A major box office hit in the Far East, Hideo Nakada's Ring is a subtly creepy Japanese ghost story with an urban legend theme, based on a series of popular teen-appeal novels by Susuki Koji. Far less showy than even the restrained chills of The Blair Witch Project or The Sixth Sense, Ring has nevertheless become a mainstream blockbuster and has already been followed by Ring 2 and the prequel Ring 0. A Hollywood remake is in the works. Investigating the inexplicable, near-simultaneous deaths of her young niece and three teenage friends, reporter Asakawa (Nanako Matsushima) learns of a story about a supernaturally cursed video-tape circulating among school kids. As soon as anyone has watched the tape, allegedly recorded by mistake from a dead TV channel, the telephone rings and the viewer has exactly a week to live. Those doomed are invisibly marked, but their images are distorted if photographed. Inevitably, Asakawa gets hold of the tape and watches it. The enigmatic collage of images include a coy woman combing her hair in a mirror, an old newspaper headline about a volcanic eruption, a hooded figure ranting, people crawling and a rural well. When the phone rings (a memorably exaggerated effect), Asakawa is convinced that the curse is active and calls in her scientist ex-husband Ryuji (Hiroyuki Sanada) to help. He watches a copy of the video a day after Asakawa is exposed and willingly submits himself to the curse. [+]Even more urgency is added to their quest when their young son is unwittingly duped, apparently by the mystery woman from the tape, into watching the video too, joining the queue for a supernatural death. On the DVD: For a film made in the digital era, the letterboxed (16:9) print is in mediocre state, with a noticeable amount of scratching, though the Dolby Digital soundtrack is superb, making this a film that's as scary to listen to as it is to watch (the squeamish might find themselves covering their ears rather than their eyes in some scenes). Otherwise, there are trailers for the first two Ring films and Audition, 10 stills, filmographies for the principals, a review by Mark Kermode, blurb-like extracts from other reviews and the ominous option of playing Sadako's video after a solemn disavowal of responsibility from the distributors! -Kim Newman.
Actors & Directors
- Jon Pertwee
- ELizabeth Sladen
- Alan Bromly
Price: £10.99
Review Doctor Who - The Time Warrior [1973] / 2 Entertain Video:
![Review Warner Home Video / Scars Of Dracula [1970]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41BY0TSG3KL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Christopher Lee
- Patrick Troughton
- Dennis Waterman
- Jenny Hanley
- Christopher Matthews
- Roy Ward Baker
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Bram Stoker
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.64
Review Scars Of Dracula [1970] / Warner Home Video:
![Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Ravenous [1999]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4181Y44ZNVL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Antonia Bird
- Jeffrey Jones
- David Arquette
- Guy Pearce
- Robert Carlyle
- Jeremy Davies
Run time: 97 min.
Creator: Ted Griffin
RRP: £5.99
Price: £5.80
Review Ravenous [1999] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:When was the last time you saw a new movie set during the 1840s? The era is the first oddball thing about Ravenous, though by no means the last. This provocatively weird movie is essentially a vampire film except that instead of drinking blood the baddies eat flesh. The setting here is Fort Spencer, a dismal collection of shacks huddled in the snows of the Sierra Nevada mountains. Mid-winter, a nearly dead Scotsman (Robert Carlyle, of Trainspotting and The Full Monty fame) staggers into camp with a story of desperate cannibalism. The skeleton crew (so to speak) manning the fort sets out to investigate, when. ah, but the twists and turns of this dark yarn should remain shocking. Be assured, however, that the cannibalism has just begun; this movie has cannibalism like Titanic had an iceberg. British director Antonia Bird (Priest) blends some humour into this scenario, especially in the final reels, but otherwise this is a fairly serious gore picture; the studio who released this film tried to market it as a black comedy, and the movie flopped anyway. [+]It deserves a better fate-at the very least, it's not quite like anything else out there. The soundtrack a brilliant collaboration between Michael Nyman (The Piano) and Blur's Damon Albarn, is an offbeat blend of period twang and modern drone. Carlyle and Guy Pearce (of L. A. Confidential and the Aussie soap Neighbours) are fascinating in the lead roles-their sunken faces would look at home in Civil War photographs-and the eccentric supporting cast, including Jeremy Davies and David Arquette, adds flavour to the dish. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.
![Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Exorcist 3 [1990]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YBW5TC45L._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- William Peter Blatty|George C. Scott|Ed Flanders|Jason Miller
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £16.99
Review The Exorcist 3 [1990] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
![Review Entertainment in Video / Final Destination 2 [2003]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H3TCZP2CL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Tony Todd
- A.J. Cook
- Ali Larter
- David R. Ellis
- Michael Landes
- Terrence 'T.C.' Carson
Run time: 85 min.
Creator: J. Mackye Gruber
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.78
Review Final Destination 2 [2003] / Entertainment in Video:
Actors & Directors
- Marsha Hunt
- Sybil Danning
- Christopher Lee
- Annie McEnroe
- Jimmy Nail
- Philippe Mora
Run time: 87 min.
Price: £6.99
Review Howling 2 [1985] / 2 Entertain Video:
![Review 4 Front Video / Virus [1999]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51373ZC0BCL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- John Bruno
- Marshall Bell
- Jamie Lee Curtis
- Donald Sutherland
- Joanna Pacula
- William Baldwin
Run time: 95 min.
Creator: Dennis Feldman
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.50
Review Virus [1999] / 4 Front Video:In this fast-paced, sci-fi/horror shoot-'em-up based on the Dark Horse comic book, Jamie Lee Curtis plays the navigator of an ocean-going tug. When a typhoon cripples their boat, the crew sails into the eye of the storm, where they discover a high-tech Russian communications and research vessel adrift. Only one Russian crewmember is still alive, raving about "intelligent lightning. " They soon discover that an alien life form has taken over the ship's computers and is churning out biomechanical warriors. With their own boat destroyed, the crew must battle the creature as the ship reenters the storm. If the basic story and characters all sound familiar, it may not surprise you that producer Gale Anne Hurd's other films include The Terminator and Aliens. This movie and its derivative screenplay aren't nearly as good as those were, and director John Bruno (who won an Oscar for best visual effects for The Abyss) seems more skilled at action choreography and special effects than character and story. Curtis plays another variation on her "scream queen" persona, while Donald Sutherland gives a deliciously hammy performance as the tug captain (in his words, "the dominant life form") who smells salvage money if he can claim the Russian ship for his own. For all the picture's flaws, the effects are good (and gory) and it moves at top speed for a brisk 100 minutes. A trivia factoid: at one point on this troubled production, film footage was seized at the airport because the shipping box was prominently marked with the film's title! -Geoff Miller.
![Review Warner Home Video / Curse Of The Werewolf (1960) [1961]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41RXKHV4PML._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Clifford Evans
- Anthony Dawson
- Yvonne Romain
- Terence Fisher
- Catherine Feller
- Oliver Reed
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: Guy Endore
RRP: £5.99
Price: £42.00
Review Curse Of The Werewolf (1960) [1961] / Warner Home Video:
![Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Return Of The Jedi [1983]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KTCF1H4QL._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Anthony Daniels
- Harrison Ford
- Carrie Fisher
- Billy Dee Williams
- Richard Marquand
- Mark Hamill
Run time: 126 min.
Creator: Lawrence Kasdan
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.03
Review Return Of The Jedi [1983] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:
![Review 4 Front Video / Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein [1948]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DME5K5Y7L._SL160_.jpg)
Actors & Directors
- Charles Barton
- Lou Costello
- Bud Abbott
- Glenn Strange
- Bela Lugosi
- Lon Chaney Jr.
Run time: 79 min.
Creator: Robert Lees
RRP: £5.99
Price: £4.95
Review Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein [1948] / 4 Front Video:
| Models & Brands:
Mikado [1987], The Wicker Man [1973], Willow [1988], From Beyond [1986], Doctor Who - The Stones Of Blood, Devil Man - The Birth, Hocus Pocus (1993) (Disney), Doctor Who - The Invasion [1968], The X Files : Season 2 Collector's Edition, Ring (1998) [2000], Doctor Who - The Time Warrior [1973], Scars Of Dracula [1970], Ravenous [1999], The Exorcist 3 [1990], Final Destination 2 [2003], Howling 2 [1985], Virus [1999], Curse Of The Werewolf (1960) [1961], Return Of The Jedi [1983], Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein [1948] |
