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Review Warner Home Video / The Big Sleep [1946]
Actors & Directors
  • Howard Hawks
  • Dorothy Malone
  • Lauren Bacall
  • Humphrey Bogart
  • John Ridgely
  • Martha Vickers
Release date: 2000-03-06
Run time: 110 min.
Creator: William Faulkner
RRP: £9.99
Price: £0.69

Review The Big Sleep [1946] / Warner Home Video:

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall made screen history together more than once, but they were never more popular than in this 1946 adaptation of Raymond Chandler's novel, directed by Howard Hawks (To Have and Have Not). Bogart plays private eye Philip Marlowe, who is hired by a wealthy socialite (Bacall) to look into troubles stirred up by her wild, young sister (Martha Vickers). Legendarily complicated (so much so that even Chandler had trouble following the plot), the film is nonetheless hugely entertaining and atmospheric, an electrifying plunge into the exotica of detective fiction. William Faulkner wrote the screenplay. -Tom Keogh.

Review CARLTON / The 39 Steps [1935]
Actors & Directors
  • Robert Donat
  • Godfrey Tearle
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Madeleine Carroll
  • Lucie Mannheim
  • Peggy Ashcroft
Release date: 2001-08-13
Run time: 106 min.
Creator: John Buchan
RRP: £10.99
Price: £8.84

Review The 39 Steps [1935] / CARLTON:

A high point of Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood career, 1935's The Thirty-Nine Steps is the first and best of three film versions of John Buchann's rather stiff novel. Robert Donat plays the rancher embroiled in a plot to steal British military secrets. He finds himself on the run; falsely accused of murder, while also pursuing the dastardly web of spies alluded to in the title. With a plot whose twists and turns match the hilly Scottish terrain in which much of the film is set, The Thirty-Nine Steps combines a breezy suavity with a palpable psychological tension. Hitchcock was already a master at conveying such tension through his cinematic methods, rather than relying just on situation or dialogue. Sometimes his ways of bringing the best out of his actors brought the worst out in himself. If the scene in which Donat is handcuffed to co-star Madeline Carroll has a certain edge, for instance, that's perhaps because the director mischievously cuffed them together in a rehearsal, then left them attached for a whole afternoon, pretending to have lost the key. The movie also introduces Hitchcock's favoured plot device, the "McGuffin" (here, the military secret), the unexplained device or "non-point" on which the movie turns. -David Stubbs A high point of Hitchcock's pre-Hollywood career, 1935's The Thirty-Nine Steps is the first and best of three film versions of John Buchan's rather stiff novel. Robert Donat plays Richard Hannay, who becomes embroiled in a plot to steal military secrets. [+]
He finds himself on the run; falsely accused of murder, while also pursuing the dastardly web of spies alluded to in the title. With a plot whose twists and turns match the hilly Scottish terrain in which much of the film is set, The Thirty-Nine Steps combines a breezy suavity with a palpable psychological tension. Hitchcock was already a master at conveying such tension through his cinematic methods, rather than relying just on situation or dialogue. Sometimes his ways of bringing the best out of his actors brought the worst out in himself. If the scene in which Donat is handcuffed to co-star Madeline Carroll has a certain edge, for instance, that's perhaps because the director mischievously cuffed them together in a rehearsal, then left them attached for a whole afternoon, pretending to have lost the key. The movie also introduces Hitchcock's favoured plot device, the "McGuffin" (here, the military secret), the unexplained device or "non-point" on which the movie turns. -David Stubbs.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / The Ghost And The Darkness [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Stephen Hopkins
  • Tom Wilkinson
  • John Kani
  • Val Kilmer
  • Bernard Hill
  • Michael Douglas
Release date: 2000-04-03
Run time: 105 min.
Creator: William Goldman
RRP: £5.99
Price: £14.98

Review The Ghost And The Darkness [1997] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

Val Kilmer stars in The Ghost and the Darkness as Lt Col John Patterson, a 19th-century Irish engineer drafted by Britain's railroad bosses to build a trestle bridge over an African river, thus expanding the empire a tiny bit more. In Tsavo, Patterson is instantly hailed for killing a man-eating lion that had been making life hell for native workers. But morale sinks when two more unstoppable big cats devour more men and destroy the project. Along comes an, expatriate American hunter (Michael Douglas) to help Patterson face the almost preternatural powers of the two killers. The script by William Goldman (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) is based on fact, though the film owes more to Steven Spielberg (specifically to Jaws) than history. There are also suggestive echoes of Kipling and Conrad in the material and characters, and there are hints of emotional complexity and psychological nuance that make one wish this could have been a great film instead of a merely fun one. -Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review Entertainment in Video / A Nightmare On Elm Street [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Johnny Depp
  • John Saxon
  • Heather Langenkamp
  • Robert Englund
  • Ronee Blakley
  • Wes Craven
Release date: 1998-09-28
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Stanley Dudelson
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.93

Review A Nightmare On Elm Street [1984] / Entertainment in Video:


Review Cinema Club / Sexy Beast [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Jonathan Glazer
  • Amanda Redman
  • Ben Kingsley
  • Ian McShane
  • James Fox
  • Ray Winstone
Release date: 2003-01-13
Run time: 84 min.
Creator: Louis Mellis
Price: £5.99

Review Sexy Beast [2001] / Cinema Club:

Fed up with the seemingly endless succession of Brit gangster flicks? Or just wish that someone would reinvent the genre? Either way, Sexy Beast is for you. While reintroducing some of the well-worn characters of recent years, the film at least attempts to take a sideways look at the genre. Centred on the lives of two ex-con ex-pats and their new lives in Spain, the story is one concerning the conflict between the past and the present. Ray Winston is Gel, who, enjoying his life of early retirement in the sun, finds his loyalties called into question when asked to return to Britain to take part in an audacious heist. There's not much else to say plot wise, but the script and cast is so strong that the film gets away with it. Eschewing the younger brat pack in favour of the likes of Winston, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman (sadly under-used) and Ben Kingsley (whose ultra foul-mouthed Don steals every scene) gives the film a calm authority. Quite violent-although more in language than action-but not without its moments of brilliant humour, Sexy Beast is an intelligent, enthralling and welcome addition to the gangster-film genre. -Phil Udell.

Review Cinema Club / Harry's Game [1982]
Actors & Directors
  • Benjamin Whitrow
  • Ray Lonnen
  • Lawrence Gordon Clark
  • Nicholas Day
  • Denys Hawthorne
  • Geoffrey Russell
Release date: 2002-04-08
Run time: 131 min.
Creator: Gerald Seymour
Price: £5.99

Review Harry's Game [1982] / Cinema Club:


Review 2 Entertain Video / Doctor Who - The E-Space Trilogy (Warriors' Gate / Full Circle / State of Decay) [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Tom Baker
  • William Hartnell
  • Jon Pertwee
  • Patrick Troughton
  • Peter Davison
Release date: 1997-11-03
Run time: 281 min.
Creator: Sydney Newman
RRP: £34.99
Price: £39.99

Review Doctor Who - The E-Space Trilogy (Warriors' Gate / Full Circle / State of Decay) [1963] / 2 Entertain Video:


Review Uca Catalogue / Bad Boys 2 [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Will Smith
  • Peter Stormare
  • Martin Lawrence
  • Michael Bay
  • Jordi Mollà
  • Gabrielle Union
Release date: 2005-01-10
Run time: 141 min.
Creator: Ron Shelton
RRP: £5.99
Price: £0.48

Review Bad Boys 2 [2003] / Uca Catalogue:

Bad Boys II fulfils every audience expectation and then some: no-one goes to a movie directed by Michael Bay for delicacy and grace; you go because Bay (Armageddon, The Rock) knows how to make your bones rattle during a high-speed chase when a car flips over, spins through the air and smacks another car with a visceral crunch. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence may be mere puppets amid all this burning rubber and shrieking metal, but they actually provide a human core to the endless cascade of car wrecks and gunfights. Their easy rapport makes their personal problems-a running joke is Lawrence's attempts at anger management-as engaging as the sheer visual hullabaloo of bullets and explosions. The plot is recycled nonsense about drug lords and dead bodies being used to smuggle drugs, but the orchestration of violence is symphonic. If that's your thing, then this is for you. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Tartan Video / Battle Royale [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Tatsuya Fujiwara
  • Sosuke Takaoka
  • Taro Yamamoto
  • Chiaki Kuriyama
  • Kinji Fukasaku
  • Aki Maeda
Release date: 2002-01-21
Run time: 109 min.
Creator: Koushun Takami
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.68

Review Battle Royale [2001] / Tartan Video:

With the Japanese currently leading the way in thought-provoking cinematic violence it's only fitting that Kenta Fukasaku's Battle Royale is being touted as A Clockwork Orange for the 21st century. Based on the novel by Koshun Takami, the film opens with a series of fleeting images of unruly Japanese schoolkids, whose bad behaviour provides a justification for the "punishments" which will ensue. To be honest, anyone who has grown up with Grange Hill will view these aggressive teenagers' acts as pretty moderate, but in the context of Japanese culture, their lack of respect is a challenge to the traditional values of respecting your elders. Once the prequel has been dispensed with the classmates are drugged and awaken on an island where they find they have been fitted with dog collars that monitor their every move. Instructed by their old teacher ("Beat" Takeshi) with the aid of an upbeat MTV-style video, they are told of their fate: after an impartial Lottery they have been chosen to fight each other in a three-day, no-rules contest, the "Battle Royale". Their only chance of survival in the "Battle" is through the death of all their classmates. Some pupils embrace their mission with zeal, while others simply give up or try to become peacemakers and revolutionaries. However, the ultimate drive for survival comes from the desire to protect the one you love. The film looks like a war-flick on occasions, with intense Apocalypse Now-style imagery (check out the classical score blasted over the tannoys with sweeping shots of helicopters). Yet, Battle Royale works on many different levels, highlighting the authorities' desperation to enforce law and order and the alienation caused by the generation gap. [+]
But whether you view the film as an important social commentary or simply enjoy the adrenalin-fuelled violence, this is set to become cult viewing for the computer game generation and beyond. On the DVD: Battle Royale has been re-released in this new and improved version. Now offered in progressive scan, utilising NTSC technology which has enhanced the picture quality. Please be aware though that not all DVD players are compatible, if unsure your best to opt for the first release. -Nikki Disney.

Review Warner Home Video / The Third Man [1949]
Actors & Directors
  • Joseph Cotten
  • Bernard Lee
  • Orson Welles
  • Alida Valli
  • Trevor Howard
  • Carol Reed
Release date: 1999-11-08
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Graham Greene
RRP: £9.99
Price: £9.75

Review The Third Man [1949] / Warner Home Video:

The fractured Europe post-World War II is perfectly captured in Carol Reed's masterpiece thriller, set in a Vienna still shell-shocked from battle. Holly Martins (Joseph Cotten) is an alcoholic pulp writer come to visit his old friend Harry Lime (Orson Welles). But when Cotton first arrives in Vienna, Lime's funeral is under way. From Lime's girlfriend and an occupying British officer, Martins learns of allegations of Lime's involvement in racketeering, which Martins vows to clear from his friend's reputation. As he is drawn deeper into post-war intrigue, Martins finds layer upon layer of deception, which he desperately tries to sort out. Welles' long-delayed entrance in the film has become one of the hallmarks of modern cinematography and it is just one of dozens of cockeyed camera angles that seem to mirror the off-kilter post-war society. Cotten and Welles give career-making performances and the Anton Karas zither theme will haunt you. -Anne Hurley.

Review Warner Home Video / Point Blank [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Lloyd Bochner
  • Lee Marvin
  • John Boorman
  • Angie Dickinson
  • Keenan Wynn
  • Carroll O'Connor
Release date: 2000-05-15
Run time: 88 min.
Creator: Rafe Newhouse
Price: £5.99

Review Point Blank [1967] / Warner Home Video:

Point Blank's hero, Walker (Lee Marvin), strides through Los Angeles with the steely stare of a stone-cold killer, or perhaps a ghost. Betrayed by his wife and his best friend, who gun him down point-blank and leave him for dead after a successful heist, Walker blasts his way up the criminal food chain in a quest for revenge. Did he survive the shooting, did he return from the grave, or is it all a dying dream? The question is left in the air in John Boorman's modern film noir, a brutal revenge thriller based on Richard Stark's novel, set in the impersonal concrete and steel canyons of Los Angeles and the eerily empty cells of Alcatraz. Walker kills without remorse, guided by shadowy "informant" Keenan Wynn, whose own agenda is carefully concealed and assisted by Angie Dickinson as he desperately searches for someone, anyone, who can just give him his money. But if Walker is an extreme incarnation of the revenge-driven noir anti-hero, the modern syndicate has been transformed into a world of paper jungles and corporate businessmen: an alienating concept for the two-fisted, gun-wielding gangster. Boorman creates a hard, austere look for the film and scatters flashes of painful memory throughout the story, grafting the New Wave onto old genres with confidence and style. Haunting and brutal, Point Blank remains one of the most distinctive crime thrillers ever made. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. com.

Review Warner Home Video / Lone Star [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Kris Kristofferson
  • Elizabeth Pena
  • Matthew McConaughey
  • Chris Cooper
  • Frances McDormand
  • John Sayles
Release date: 2001-08-06
Run time: 130 min.
Price: £5.99

Review Lone Star [1996] / Warner Home Video:

Writer-director John Sayles's finest film to date is a sprawling, multilayered exploration of American boundaries-cultural, racial, sexual, temporal-set in a tiny Texas town on (naturally) the border of Mexico. Comparable in scope and detail to such wonderful movies as Nashville, Boogie Nights, or Sayles's own City of Hope, Lone Star plays like a fertile novel, weaving its numerous characters in and out of its large canvas and repays numerous repeated viewings. Sayles centres this tapestry with a murder mystery and touching romance, both containing origins rooted in the past. As the film opens, the skeleton of the town's corrupt, hated former sheriff, Charlie Wade (played in flashbacks with creepy intensity by Kris Kristofferson) is discovered in a nearby desert. While numerous people had reason to kill Wade, the current sheriff (Chris Cooper) believes that his own father, Wade's beloved successor, did the deed. As he unravels the mystery, he rekindles a love affair with his high school sweetheart (Elizabeth Peña) that forces the couple to relive and repair past scars. Along the way, Sayles veers off on other tangents, introducing more of the culturally divided town's characters and studying how the past haunts each of their present lives. The ease with which Sayles pulls this fragmented approach together is mesmerising. He effortlessly dissolves flashbacks into contemporary action, thematically mirroring several stories simultaneously. As usual, the performances are passionate but low-key, and Sayles writes his actors natural dialogue that both captures a deep-felt understanding for regional and cultural differences and portrays the lasting effect this has on the town's citizens. [+]
-Dave McCoy.

Review Vipco / Nightkill [1980]
Actors & Directors
  • Jaclyn Smith
  • Mike Connors
  • James Franciscus
  • Ted Post
  • Robert Mitchum
  • Fritz Weaver
Release date: 2001-09-17
Run time: 94 min.
Creator: John Case
RRP: £13.99
Price: £9.98

Review Nightkill [1980] / Vipco:


Review HIGH FLIERS HFV8455 / Two Hands (1998)
Actors & Directors
  • Rose Byrne
  • Heath Ledger
  • Bryan Brown
  • David Field
  • Susie Porter
  • Gregor Jordan
Run time: 99 min.

Review Two Hands (1998) / HIGH FLIERS HFV8455:

Fast-paced comedy crime-thriller from Australia starring a young Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain, 10 Things I Hate About You & Casanova) as Jimmy, a young man who has just lost ten grand of mob money. They want it either back or him dead, or both. Jimmy on the other hand has different plans, and suddenly it all comes down to one hour, one girl and one crazy idea. A big No1 at the box-office success in Australia, this "Astonishingly stylish, lethally funny" film also co-stars, Bryan Brown (Breaker Morant, FX:Murder By Illusion) and Rose Byrne (Troy, Wicker Park & Casanova ).

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Star Trek : Episode 1 - The Cage - The Original TV Pilot Episode [1964]
Actors & Directors
  • John Hoyt
  • Leonard Nimoy
  • Robert Butler
  • Jeffrey Hunter
  • Susan Oliver
  • Majel Barrett
Run time: 63 min.
Price: £10.99

Review Star Trek : Episode 1 - The Cage - The Original TV Pilot Episode [1964] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Die Hard 2 - Die Harder (1989) [1990]
Actors & Directors
  • William Atherton
  • William Sadler
  • Bonnie Bedelia
  • Bruce Willis
  • Reginald VelJohnson
  • Renny Harlin
Release date: 1996-09-16
Run time: 118 min.
Creator: Walter Wager
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.49

Review Die Hard 2 - Die Harder (1989) [1990] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Director Renny Harlin (Cutthroat Island) took the reins of this 1990 sequel, which places Bruce Willis's New York City cop character in harm's way again with a gaggle of terrorists. This time, Willis awaits his wife's arrival at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, when he gets wind of a plot to blow up the facility. Noisy, overbearing and forgettable, the film has none of the purity of its predecessor's simple story; and it makes a huge miscalculation in allowing a terrible tragedy to occur rather than stretch out the tension. Where Die Hard set new precedents in action movies, Die Hard 2 is just an anything-goes spectacle. - Tom Keogh, Amazon. com.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Angel - Series 4 Part 1 [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Andy Hallett
  • David Boreanaz
  • J. August Richards
  • Charisma Carpenter
  • Alexis Denisof
Release date: 2003-07-14
Creator: Joss Whedon
RRP: £34.99
Price: £29.99

Review Angel - Series 4 Part 1 [2000] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

As the fourth season of Angel starts, everything is still as we left it in the previous series: Angel has been sunk to the bottom of the sea in an iron box by his inexplicable and vindictive son Connor and Cordelia has been summoned to higher realms to await orders. Gunn and Fred are left in the Hyperion Hotel, unsure about what has happened to their friends, and Lilah is working hard to seduce Wesley to the dark side. In the first few episodes, some of this is resolved but it's almost immediately replaced by far worse crises: prophesies of doom accumulate more rapidly even than usual in this wonderfully gloomy show and a horned rock-like Beast rains fire on Los Angeles. Cordelia seems to have left her memory in Heaven and an attempt to regain it in "Spin the Bottle" (written by the show's creator Joss Whedon) causes chaos as her love for Angel has been replaced by a strange obsession with young Connor. Fred finds out more about how she was trapped in a demon dimension in "Supersymmetry" and we meet a mysterious woman who shoots electricity from her fingers in "Ground State". In an attempt to find out more about the Beast, Angel is turned back into his evil former self, Angelus, who demonstrates to his former friends just how much damage he can do locked in a cage by using his eyes and his vicious tongue. This is Angel's most tightly dramatic season yet-with a story arc of surprising intensity punctuated by the show's usual wit and sexiness. -Roz Kaveney.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 (Box Set 1) [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony Head
  • Nicholas Brendon
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar
  • Alyson Hannigan
  • James Marsters
Release date: 2000-06-12
Run time: 475 min.
Creator: Joss Whedon
RRP: £34.99
Price: £3.94

Review Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 (Box Set 1) [1998] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Action-packed Season Three develops major characters and plot lines brewing over the last couple of years (see below). The Mayor, this season's major baddie, wants to become an invincible demon by slaughtering everyone at Sunnydale High's graduation ceremony, but he's going to torture them all by giving his speech first. Bad-girl vampire-slayer Faith wants to best Buffy and gets ever more rotten. Angel comes back from hell but isn't sure what to do about his girlfriend. Willow meets her evil gay vampire duplicate from another dimension. Xander loses his virginity, but still has to contemplate his essential uselessness. Cordelia gets less whiny and has to work in a dress-shop when her father becomes bankrupt. Giles wears tweed and drinks tea, though it is revealed that he used to be a warlock and in a punk band. Besides the soap opera, there are monsters, curses, and vampires (inevitably). -Kim Newman.

Review Warner Home Video / The Pelican Brief [1994]
Actors & Directors
  • Julia Roberts
  • John Heard
  • Denzel Washington
  • Alan J. Pakula
  • Tony Goldwyn
  • Sam Shepard
Release date: 1995-03-20
Run time: 135 min.
Creator: John Grisham
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.85

Review The Pelican Brief [1994] / Warner Home Video:

Another John Grisham legal thriller comes to the screen, pairing Denzel Washington and Julia Roberts in a film directed by Alan J Pakula, who is known for dark-hued suspense pictures such as Klute, The Parallax View, All the President's Men, and Presumed Innocent. The Pelican Brief isn't up to the level of those films, but it is a perfectly entertaining movie about a law student (Roberts) whose life is endangered when she discovers evidence of a conspiracy behind the killings of two Supreme Court justices. She enlists the help of an investigative reporter (Washington) and the two become fugitives. The charisma and chemistry of the leads goes a long way toward compensating for the story's shortcomings, as does a truly impressive supporting cast that includes Sam Shepard, John Heard, James B Sikking, Tony Goldwyn, Stanley Tucci, Hume Cronyn, John Lithgow, William Atherton and Robert Culp. -Jim Emerson.

Review 2 Entertain Video / Doctor Who The Ark in Space [1963]
Actors & Directors
  • Richard Martin (IV)
  • John Gorrie
  • Tom Baker
  • Elizabeth Sladen
  • Ian Marter
Release date: 2000-01-24
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £10.99
Price: £4.99

Review Doctor Who The Ark in Space [1963] / 2 Entertain Video:


Browse Horror & Suspense:

Models & Brands:
The Big Sleep [1946], The 39 Steps [1935], The Ghost And The Darkness [1997], A Nightmare On Elm Street [1984], Sexy Beast [2001], Harry's Game [1982], Doctor Who - The E-Space Trilogy (Warriors' Gate / Full Circle / State of Decay) [1963], Bad Boys 2 [2003], Battle Royale [2001], The Third Man [1949], Point Blank [1967], Lone Star [1996], Nightkill [1980], Two Hands (1998), Star Trek : Episode 1 - The Cage - The Original TV Pilot Episode [1964], Die Hard 2 - Die Harder (1989) [1990], Angel - Series 4 Part 1 [2000], Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Season 3 (Box Set 1) [1998], The Pelican Brief [1994], Doctor Who The Ark in Space [1963]

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