Review, buy Horror & Suspense: Critters 2 [1988], Amazing Stories - 6 [1986], Forty Years Of Science Fiction Television Featuring Star Trek [1993], Neon Genesis Evangelion - Part 5 [1997], The Flying Saucer, Neon Genesis Evangelion - Part 4 [1997], The Outer Limits - The New Series - Vol. 6 - If These Walls Could Talk / Birthright [1995], The Cosmic Man, Where Sleeping Dogs Lie [1991], Goku Midnight Eye - Part 1 [1989], Past Midnight [1991], Cold Blood / Desert Law [1979], The Shiver Of The Vampires [1970], The Bait [1995], Panther [1995], They Met In The Dark [1943], The Outer Limits - The New Series - Vol. 7 - Inconstant Moon / Trial By Fire [1996], Hostage, Mad Bull 34 - Part 1 - Scandal [1990], Medicine Man / The Name Of The Rose [1987]

Jean-Jacques Annaud's The Name of the Rose is a flawed attempt to adapt Umberto Eco's highly convoluted medieval bestseller for the screen, necessarily excising much of the esoterica that made the book so compelling. Still, what's left is a riveting whodunit set in a grimly and grimily realistic 14th-century Benedictine monastery populated by a parade of grotesque characters, all of whom spend their time lurking in dark places or scuttling, half-unseen, in the omnipresent gloom. A series of mysterious and gruesome deaths are somehow tied up with the unwelcome attention of the Inquisition, sent to root out suspected heretical behavior among the monastic scribes whose lives are dedicated to transcribing ancient manuscripts for their famous library, access to which is prevented by an ingenious maze-like layout. Enter Sean Connery as investigator-monk William of Baskerville (the Sherlock Holmes connection made explicit in his name) and his naive young assistant Adso (a youthful Christian Slater). The Grand Inquisitor Bernado Gui (F. Murray Abraham) suspects devilry; but William and Adso, using Holmesian forensic techniques, uncover a much more human cause: the secrets of the library are being protected at a terrible cost. A fine international cast and the splendidly evocative location compensate for a screenplay that struggles to present Eco's multifaceted story even partially intact; Annaud's idiosyncratic direction complements the sinister, unsettling aura of the tale ideally. -Mark Walker.

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Critters 2 [1988], Amazing Stories - 6 [1986], Forty Years Of Science Fiction Television Featuring Star Trek [1993], Neon Genesis Evangelion - Part 5 [1997], The Flying Saucer, Neon Genesis Evangelion - Part 4 [1997], The Outer Limits - The New Series - Vol. 6 - If These Walls Could Talk / Birthright [1995], The Cosmic Man, Where Sleeping Dogs Lie [1991], Goku Midnight Eye - Part 1 [1989], Past Midnight [1991], Cold Blood / Desert Law [1979], The Shiver Of The Vampires [1970], The Bait [1995], Panther [1995], They Met In The Dark [1943], The Outer Limits - The New Series - Vol. 7 - Inconstant Moon / Trial By Fire [1996], Hostage, Mad Bull 34 - Part 1 - Scandal [1990], Medicine Man / The Name Of The Rose [1987]

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