At first glance, René Clair might seem an odd match for Agatha Christie's mystery thriller And Then There Were None, but his buoyant touch is exactly what is missing from so many overly solemn remakes. Ten strangers gather for a mysterious gathering on a secluded island. It turns out to be a farewell party, for they have all been sentenced to die for crimes in their past by a self-appointed judge, jury and executioner who could be one of them. One by one, the guests are systematically dispatched as described in the lyrics of the children's rhyme "Ten Little Indians", while the survivors nervously eye one another, splintering into tenuous alliances until the next murder throws suspicion on someone new. A terrific cast of character actors have a ball with Dudley Nichols's witty script. The flamboyant sparring of Barry Fitzgerald (whose paternal Irish lilt takes a sinister dimension) and Walter Huston is almost upstaged by Roland Young's deadpan drollery. Romantic leads Louis Hayward and June Duprez come off as arch and stiff in a company that includes a sinisterly detached Judith Anderson, a dotty and distracted C Aubrey Smith, and a hilariously flippant Mischa Auer. The story has been remade numerous times under the title of Christie's novel, Ten Little Indians, but never as well as this 1945 version. Clair's effervescent, lively little gem is a fatal drawing-room comedy with a body count and a surreal mood of doom. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. [+]

Despite copious swearing and a corporate rock soundtrack, The Hole might, more appropriately, have begun with a title sequence of silhouettes cavorting in front of a fiery backdrop; it owes far more to Tales of the Unexpected than the slick US teen movies (I Know What You Did Last Summer, The Faculty) it tries so hard to imitate. This British horror flick displays the same cheap production values as the 1970's series, but rather than staying within the confines of a half-hour TV slot, The Hole stretches its thin, but promising, premise over 90 minutes. Based on Guy Burt's novel, the story follows three rich kids from an exclusive English boarding school who avoid their school field trip by hiding out in an underground bunker. Liz (a suitably embarrassed Thora Birch) tags along for the ride in the hope that she may consummate her crush on Mike Steel (Desmond Harrington), the school's resident American hipster. They are then left imprisoned, which should be the cue for The Breakfast Club Goes Insane but isn't, as director Nick Hamm eschews the straightforward in favour of clumsy flashbacks and contrived plot twists, robbing the film of any tension or shock and turning it into a tiresome stretch in the company of four very disagreeable stereotypes. The Hole is a witless movie, entirely lacking the self-referential humour and technical skill of its better American counterparts. If you want classic British horror, try Peeping Tom or The Wicker Man instead. The Hole is a movie that may be set deep underground, but ultimately it's a very shallow experience. On the DVD: the extras add nothing to this movie. The theatrical trailer and widescreen 2. [+]

24 Hours in London is a crime thriller set in 2009 in which a neatly twisted story is undermined by bizarre shifts in style; yet it remains notable as Gary-2point4 Children-Olsen's last screen work. Olsen plays a London ganglord seeking to erase his rivals while, as in The Long Good Friday (1980) before it, he completes a major deal. But when a witness, Martha (Anjela Lauren Smith), survives a massacre Olsen orders her hit before the police can close in. Thus the film delivers a set-piece assault on a police station in homage to The Terminator before relocating for a waiting game in a hotel room. Add a mystery police traitor and a sub-plot involving organ theft and the story develops with more than expected ingenuity. Unfortunately the tone veers so much it's like watching two different films: a dark thriller which doesn't have the budget to convince us that this is 2009, and a slapstick farce filled with OTT violence and cartoon caricatures better suited to TV's Bottom. Played either straight or for laughs the story could have worked, but switching between the two results in an almost unbelievable mess that proves first time directors need do more than simply parade their influences. -Gary S. Dalkin.

An obvious attempt to cash in on the success of Jaws, this 1977 thriller was also based on a best-seller by Peter Benchley, and it features a memorable performance by Robert Shaw (the doomed shark hunter in Jaws) in one of the last roles of his career. Looking very tanned and healthy, Nick Nolte and Jacqueline Bisset play a young couple enjoying a tropical vacation who discover a glass ampoule while scuba diving off the coast of Bermuda. It takes a seasoned treasure hunter (Shaw) to identify the ampoule as part of a valuable shipment of World War II morphine lost at sea, coincidentally, atop the even greater treasure of a sunken Spanish galleon. Thus begins a race for drugs and treasure pitting Nolte, Bisset and Shaw against a ruthless drug lord (Louis Gossett Jr) who will do anything-even resort to Haitian voodoo-to get what he wants. It's all rather contrived and exploitative (after all, the movie's best known for Bisset's wet T-shirt scuba-dive), but as escapist entertainment goes it's got some exciting highlights including a moray eel that attacks on cue and. well, uh, Jacqueline Bisset in a wet T-shirt. -Jeff Shannon, Amazon. com.

In the coda of Cheaters, John Stockwell's dramatisation of the 1995 Steinmetz school scandal, Jolie Fitch (Jena Malone) ruminates, "I learned more about the way the world really works from my nine months on the academic decathlon team than most people will learn in a lifetime". Fitch is the team leader of the crumbling inner-city school's first "academic decathlon" squad, a group of hard-working kids hopelessly outclassed by the perennial champions from a lavishly funded model school for the gifted and the rich. When a Steinmetz student discovers the question sheet for the upcoming finals, the issue isn't whether to cheat, but how. Stockwell discards easy moralising and empty platitudes for an ambiguous perspective framed by questions of privilege and prejudice. Jeff Daniels, so long the cinema's hapless nice guy, is excellent as the tireless teacher, a well-meaning idealist who struggles with his inner demons through the ordeal. Malone is refreshing as a streetwise class brain whose ambition drives the team on. Their guilt is the focus of a predatory media scandal, but it's the hypocrisy of the system and the double standards of the gatekeepers that Stockwell takes to task in his compelling drama. Some might call it cynical, but Cheaters is too sharp and smart for such an easy label. Better to call it disillusioned. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. [+]

The Stranger, according to Orson Welles, "is the worst of my films. There is nothing of me in that picture. I did it to prove that I could put out a movie as well as anyone else. " True, set beside Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or even The Trial, The Stranger is as close to production-line stuff as the great Orson ever came. But even on autopilot Welles still leaves most filmmakers standing. The shadow of the Second World War hangs heavy over the plot. A war crimes investigator, played by Edward G Robinson, tracks down a senior Nazi, Franz Kindler, to a sleepy New England town where he's living in concealment as a respected college professor. The script, credited to Anthony Veiller but with uncredited input from Welles and John Huston, is riddled with implausibilities: we're asked to believe, for a start, that there'd be no extant photos of a top Nazi leader. The casting's badly skewed, too. Welles wanted Agnes Moorehead as the investigator and Robinson as Kindler, but his producer, Sam Spiegel, wouldn't wear it. [+]

In this 1983 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Sherlock Holmes story The Sign of Four, Ian Richardson takes his bow as the much-played grandee of Victorian detective fiction. One of the most enjoyable Holmes tales, this is a fast-paced adventure which features Holmes and Watson on a nail-biting chase through the fog-laden streets of London as they attempt to apprehend a brutal killer. While Richardson's Holmes may have been overshadowed by the more prolific contributions of Jeremy Brett he is a no less successful one, looking the part and bringing his own charismatic charm to the role. With its moody, vivid drama and raft of good performances, this story lays the groundwork upon which Jeremy Brett's later series would so brilliantly capitalise. Rich in atmosphere and successfully capturing the mystery-ridden world of Holmes and Watson, this is a welcome look back at one of the better small-screen Holmes. Fans of Holmesian trivia will note the presence of Clive Merrison, who would go on to play Holmes in the BBC's complete audio adaptations. -Danny Graydon.

If you like murder and dig beachwear, you'll love The In Crowd. Former obsessive Adrien is released from a mental institution (cue ominous music) and her nice psychiatrist finds her a summer job at a snooty country club, apparently reasoning that there's no better place to rebuild your self-esteem. Adrien quickly encounters the rich kids, who mostly run around being rich and beautiful. Rich queen Brittany decides to become Adrien's new best friend. Could it be for (oh, no!) the wrong reasons? Actually, her reasons turn out to be baffling, along with the rest of the poorly thought-out plot and thinly sketched characters. Director Mary Lambert makes a game attempt at building suspense with incredibly dark lighting and generic Spooky Music, but the script doesn't give her any help. The ending involves one of those elaborate, Scooby Doo-ish plots that require knowing precisely how someone will react and exactly where she will go when she is very, very upset. Nonetheless, the movie presents lots of attractive young people in swimwear and provides an excellent opportunity to play the which-of-these-actors-will-still-have-a-career-next-year game. Enjoy. -Ali Davis, Amazon. [+]

Of all the Sherlock Holmes tales written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (one of the four novels) remains the best-known. Adding a dash of the supernatural to the Great Detective's adventures, it is certainly one of the most dramatic and an obvious target for screen interpretation. Prior to Jeremy Brett indelibly making the role his own to modern TV audiences, Ian Richardson made for a suitably incisive and enthusiastic Holmes in this enjoyable 1983 adaptation. The much-filmed tale finds Holmes and Watson drawn in to the mysterious curse afflicting the well-heeled Baskerville dynasty. Is a monster stalking the heir to the Baskerville fortune, or is the culprit a far from demonic force? As Holmes, Ian Richardson is blessed with the avian features that, like Basil Rathbone or Peter Cushing, effectively capture Sidney Paget's original likeness. Though Holmes' more anti-social facets are dispensed with, Richardson is engaging in such a well-explored role, recalling the razor-sharp wit and intelligence of Rathbone. Attracting a distinguished British cast (Brian Blessed, Denholm Elliot, Martin Shaw) and decent production values (though with a few Hammer Horror moments), this will not disappoint fans of Victorian literature's finest detective, nor those in search of a classic, chilling thriller. -Danny Graydon.

When Warner Brothers was unable to secure the rights to Richard Preston's terrifying non-fiction book The Hot Zone (purchased by a rival studio), they took the basic idea of a fatal virus on the loose in the US, added Dustin Hoffman and director Wolfgang Petersen (Das Boot) and produced an unusual thriller-a surprise hit-called Outbreak. The other picture, slated to star Robert Redford and Jodie Foster, fell through. The premise of Outbreak, which owes something to Elia Kazan's 1950 plague-scare movie, Panic in the Streets, is as terrifying as it is timely. As developers slash their way deeper into the previously unexplored tropical rainforests, they are exposed to radically new forms of life, including diseases, that in these days of commonplace international travel could turn into deadly epidemics almost before we know it. Hoffman's character and his estranged wife (Rene Russo) are disease experts called in to identify the unknown killer, which was carried into the country by an illegally smuggled monkey. The best sequence shows the disease spreading-through recycled air on a passenger jet or a sneeze in a crowded cinema. The final chase is pretty conventional but the cast is terrific, including Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland, Cuba Gooding Jr. , J. T. Walsh and Zakes Mokae. [+]

This delirious mix of sex, sadism and style has a masked man stalking the gorgeous mannequins of a Roman high fashion house, murdering them in a strikingly fetishist manner and then leaving the corpses to be discovered like grisly works of art. Mario Bava's 1964 film, originally titled Sei donne per l'assassino, is one of the earliest slasher movies, and remains a suspenseful, disturbing and oddly seductive film. The complex, lurid plot features blackmail, murder for profit, drug addiction and scandal among the beautiful people. Smooth Cameron Mitchell and lovely Eva Bartok are the conspirators, pursued by a plodding Columbo-style detective. However, Bava goes beyond the world of Agatha Christie or Edgar Wallace to embrace the surreal and the nightmarish. Each murder is handled like a musical number, with elaborate camera moves, striking colour effects and a strangely memorable jazz score. There is certainly more than a tinge of misogyny in the treatment of actresses as disposable dummies, but the plot is equally cynical about its grasping, feeble, suspicious male characters. This welcome video release-more complete than any previous UK edition-is letterboxed to show off the cinematography and, most importantly, preserves Bava's astonishingly rich colour effects. -Kim Newman.