Review, buy Horror & Suspense: I Walked With a Zombie [1943], Doctor Who - The Two Doctors [1985], Tales That Witness Madness - An Orgy Of The Damned [1973], The Concrete Jungle [1982], Stephen King's Sometimes They Come Back, Mrs Bradley Mysteries - Vol. 1 [1998], Assault On Precinct 13 [1976], Wait Until Dark [1968], Twelve Monkeys [1996], The Red Siren [2002], Trouble Every Day [2002], Freddy's Nightmares - A Nightmare On Elm Street - The Series - Safe Sex / Deadline [1988], Star Trek The Next Generation 72 : Birthright, Part 2 / Starship Mine, Idle Hands [1999], Fatal Attraction [1987], Body Of Evidence - Full Uncut Version [1992], The Hunchback Of Notre Dame [1982], Campfire Tales, Things Change [1988], What A Carve Up [1961]

This free adaptation of Gladys Mitchell's classic crime novel Speedy Death as a vehicle for a full-blooded performance by Diana Rigg as the louche 1920s analyst Mrs Bradley is a splendid piece of period drama with an intriguing puzzle at its heart. Mrs Bradley attends the engagement party of her crippled god-daughter Eleanor, only to find the home of her old beau, Eleanor's father Bing (John Alderson) a hotbed of intrigue and sudden death. Eleanor's unsatisfactory fiancé Everard is found drowned in the bath after quarrelling with the former suitor whose bad driving crippled Eleanor; someone tries to shoot the fiancée of Eleanor's brother Gorde. Full of memorable characters like the sinister housekeeper Mrs McNamara (Lynda Baron), this was an impressive feature-length curtain-raiser to a popular series. For once, a detective has to investigate a crime where she has something seriously at stake-her sense of her own past and her own friends. -Roz Kaveney.

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Review 4 Front Video / Assault On Precinct 13 [1976]

Assault On Precinct 13 [1976] (4 Front Video)

Actors & Directors

Tony Burton
John Carpenter
Laurie Zimmer
Darwin Joston
Martin West
Austin Stoker

Release date: 1992-02-03
Run time: 91 min.
Creator: Steve Fine
RRP: ~~£5.99~~
Price: £0.97

Review Assault On Precinct 13 [1976] / 4 Front Video:

John Carpenter's Assault On Precinct 13 is a riveting low-budget thriller from 1976, in which a nearly abandoned police station is held under siege by a heavily armed gang called Street Thunder. Inside the station, cut off from contact and isolated, convicts heading for death row and the cops must now join forces or die. That's the basic plot, but what Carpenter does with it is remarkable. Drawing specific inspiration from the classic Howard Hawks Western Rio Bravo (which included a similar siege on disadvantaged heroes), Carpenter used his simple setting for a tense, tightly constructed series of action sequences, emphasising low-key character development and escalating tension. Few who've seen the film can forget the "ice cream cone" scene in which a young girl is caught up in the action by patronising a seemingly harmless ice cream van. It's here, and in other equally memorable scenes, that Carpenter demonstrates his knack for injecting terror into the mundane details of daily life, propelling this potent thriller to cult favourite status and long-standing critical acclaim. From this Carpenter went on to make the original Halloween, one of the most profitable independent films of all time. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

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Review Warner Home Video / Wait Until Dark [1968]

Wait Until Dark [1968] (Warner Home Video)

Actors & Directors

Jack Weston
Audrey Hepburn
Richard Crenna
Alan Arkin
Efrem Zimbalist Jr.
Terence Young

Release date: 2001-02-19
Run time: 107 min.
Creator: Robert Carrington
RRP: ~~£9.99~~
Price: £14.49

Review Wait Until Dark [1968] / Warner Home Video:

Audrey Hepburn's last Oscar nomination was for this adaptation of Frederick Knott's famed stage thriller about a blind woman, a con man (Alan Arkin), and a doll full of heroin. Thanks to Hepburn's husband, a photographer who does a good deal of travelling, she's unknowingly come into possession of said doll, which was given to him on a plane by a comely young drug runner who winds up dead. The murderous Arkin, aided by sympathetic henchman Richard Crenna, will let nothing stand in the way of his obtaining it, even if it comes down to assaying multiple "personalities" in order to visit and terrorise Hepburn; Crenna is unwillingly enlisted to help. However, the "world's champion blind lady" (as Hepburn sardonically states) is more than up to the task of defending herself in her basement Manhattan apartment in a heart-stopping climax that to this day still defines the way horror movies with jack-in-the-box psychos are made. Despite the obvious staginess of it all (the entire action takes place in Hepburn's apartment), it still works magnificently, thanks to Hepburn's steely will and Arkin's deadly, sadistic madman. A helpful hint: turn out all the lights when you watch it; theatres back in 1967 did so, killing the guiding lights during the film's last 15 minutes. We can't tell you why, but trust us, it's worth it. -Mark Englehart, Amazon. com.

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Review 4 Front Video / Twelve Monkeys [1996]

Twelve Monkeys [1996] (4 Front Video)

Actors & Directors

Brad Pitt
Madeleine Stowe
Joseph Melito
Bruce Willis
Terry Gilliam
Jon Seda

Release date: 1999-10-18
Run time: 211 min.
Creator: Janet Peoples
RRP: ~~£9.99~~
Price: £0.98

Review Twelve Monkeys [1996] / 4 Front Video:

Inspired by Chris Marker's acclaimed short film La Jetée, 12 Monkeys combines intricate, intelligent storytelling with the uniquely imaginative vision of director Terry Gilliam. The story opens in the wintry wasteland of the year 2035, where a virulent plague has forced humans to live in a squalid, oppressively regimented underground. Bruce Willis plays a societal outcast who is given the opportunity to erase his criminal record by "volunteering" to time-travel into the past to obtain a pure sample of the deadly virus that will help future scientists to develop a cure. But in bouncing from 1918 to the early and mid-1990s, he undergoes an ordeal that forces him to question his own perceptions of reality. Caught between the dangers of the past and the devastation of the future, he encounters a psychiatrist (Madeleine Stowe) who is initially convinced he's insane, and a wacky mental patient (Brad Pitt in a twitchy Oscar-nominated role) with links to a radical group that may have unleashed the deadly virus. Equal parts mystery, tragedy, psychological thriller, and apocalyptic drama, 12 Monkeys ranks as one of the best science fiction films of the 1990s, boosted by Gilliam's visual ingenuity and one of the finest performances of Willis's career. -Jeff Shannon.

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Review Tartan Video / The Red Siren [2002]

The Red Siren [2002] (Tartan Video)

Actors & Directors

Frances Barber
Andrew Tiernan
Asia Argento
Olivier Megaton
Alexandra Negrão
Jean-Marc Barr

Release date: 2004-03-29
Run time: 94 min.
Creator: Robert Conrath
RRP: ~~£9.99~~
Price: £6.45

Review The Red Siren [2002] / Tartan Video:

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Review Tartan Video / Trouble Every Day [2002]

Trouble Every Day [2002] (Tartan Video)

Actors & Directors

Vincent Gallo
Tricia Vessey
Alex Descas
Beatrice Dalle
Florence Loiret-Caille
Claire Denis

Release date: 2003-04-28
Run time: 97 min.
RRP: ~~£15.99~~
Price: £1.80

Review Trouble Every Day [2002] / Tartan Video:

A classic example of obscure art house European cinema, Trouble Every Day is a sordid, shocking and often indecipherable examination of sexual depravity and violence. This is a deliberately difficult film-it is a full 15 minutes before anyone utters a line of dialogue-and director Claire Denis has created a world that offers the viewer little in the way of respite throughout the 90-minute duration. Both Vincent Gallo and Beatrice Dalle turn in their standard cult movie performances (long silences, staring into the distance) but in truth there are few actors so well suited to a piece of work such as this. Trouble Every Day is not for the casual viewer, suited more to real aficionados of the genre who are prepared to be challenged, shaken and more than a little appalled by every twist in the gruesome plot. -Phil Udell.

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Freddy's Nightmares - A Nightmare On Elm Street - The Series - Safe Sex / Deadline [1988] (Entertainment UK Ltd.)

Actors & Directors

Michael Klein
Tom McLoughlin
Ken Wiederhorn
Lisa Gottlieb

Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Wes Craven
RRP: ~~£5.99~~
Price: £9.40

Review Freddy's Nightmares - A Nightmare On Elm Street - The Series - Safe Sex / Deadline [1988] / Entertainment UK Ltd.:

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Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Star Trek The Next Generation 72 : Birthright, Part 2 / Starship Mine

Star Trek The Next Generation 72 : Birthright, Part 2 / Starship Mine (Paramount Home Entertainment)

Actors & Directors

Patrick Stewart
David Spielberg
Richard Herd
Cliff Bole
Jennifer Gatti
Tim Russ

Release date: 1993-10-18
Run time: 86 min.
RRP: ~~£10.99~~
Price: £3.99

Review Star Trek The Next Generation 72 : Birthright, Part 2 / Starship Mine / Paramount Home Entertainment:

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Review 4 Front Video / Idle Hands [1999]

Idle Hands [1999] (4 Front Video)

Actors & Directors

Jessica Alba
Vivica A. Fox
Seth Green
Devon Sawa
Elden Henson
Rodman Flender

Release date: 2002-07-01
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Terri Hughes
Price: £5.99

Review Idle Hands [1999] / 4 Front Video:

Despite all the pot-smoking in Idle Hands, the message here seems to be that too many bong hits will take you on a one-way trip to the devil's playground. That's what happens to Anton (Devon Sawa), a wasted teen who's so perpetually zonked on weed that he doesn't notice his parents have been slaughtered by an evil force that then possesses Anton's right hand, taking on a wildly homicidal life of its own after Anton chops it off with a butcher knife. The first victims are Anton's pals Mick (teen-movie stalwart Seth Green), who gets a beer bottle embedded in his skull, and Pnub (Elden Henson), whose head is lopped off by a rotary saw blade, and later reattached with a barbecue fork and duct tape. (Did we mention that Mick and Pnub turn into undead jokesters? It's that kind of movie. ) This unoriginal idea is little more than an excuse for gross-out effects and easy one-liners, and then Vivica A. Fox appears as the demon-buster who knows how to kill the hand once and for all. It's fun to a point, and certain to be a popular Halloween hit with its intended teenage audience, but you can't help wishing this movie had tried harder to be something more than a collection of crude and gory gags. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

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Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Fatal Attraction [1987]

Fatal Attraction [1987] (Paramount Home Entertainment)

Actors & Directors

Ellen Hamilton Latzen
Anne Archer
Stuart Pankin
Michael Douglas
Glenn Close
Adrian Lyne

Release date: 2001-03-19
Run time: 114 min.
Creator: Nicholas Meyer
RRP: ~~£5.99~~
Price: £1.95

Review Fatal Attraction [1987] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

The date movie of the late 1980s, this had everyone arguing in the aisles. Does Michael Douglas deserve the unwanted attention he and his family are receiving at the hands of loony stalker Glenn Close? After a weekend extramarital affair with colleague Close, he returns home to wife Anne Archer, and Close becomes progressively angrier. You might even say she is boiling bunny mad. Directed by Adrian Lyne, this is not your average thriller, as it garnered six Academy Award nominations. The plot is too obvious, but the dialogue rings true and the intense performances hold the story together. Anne Archer deserves kudos for sidestepping cliché as the strong but frightened wife, and Close is a scream as she chews up the scenery. -Rochelle O'Gorman, Amazon. com.

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Body Of Evidence - Full Uncut Version [1992] (4 Front Video)

Actors & Directors