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Review Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Scary Movie 4 [Blu-ray] [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Carmen Electra
  • Anna Faris
  • Anthony Anderson
  • Regina Hall
  • David Zucker
  • Craig Bierko
Release date: 2007-03-19
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £26.99
Price: £15.43

Review Scary Movie 4 [Blu-ray] [2006] / Buena Vista Home Entertainment:

The fourth instalment of the spoof horror franchise follows pretty much the template that the second and third films in the series adopted. So there's a smattering of funny jokes to stick in the trailer, recreations of big scenes from other popular movies, and Anna Faris boldly trying to hold the whole enterprise together. Scary Movie 4 is thus a spectacularly easy movie to assess. Forget the inspired and downright hilarious original, and instead look to its sequels. Did you find them laugh-fests? Did you think they were entertaining? And did you actually like them? If so, Scary Movie 4 isn't going to disappoint either. But it will let down pretty much everyone else. It's not that it is terrible-it is a passable way to spend a brain-dead hour and a half. It's just such a waste. There are some great gags to be made at the expense of Saw, War Of The Worlds, Brokeback Mountain and Million Dollar Baby (the film's main targets), but Scary Movie 4 just doesn't make them. Instead, it too often relies on a stilted pratfall, someone smacking their head, or some other bumbling sequence that doesn't work as well as it should. [+]
Granted, there are laughs, but nowhere near the number that the original film delivered. Which, as mentioned earlier, makes this an easy film to judge. There's a strong chance you already know whether Scary Movie 4 is your bag or not, and thus the only recommendation here is to go with your gut feeling. You're unlikely to go wrong. -Simon Brew.

Review Universal Studios / An American Werewolf in London [1981] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Jenny Agutter
  • John Woodvine
  • Lila Kaye
  • John Landis
  • David Naughton
  • Griffin Dunne
Release date: 2001-09-18
Run time: 97 min.
Creator: Peter Guber
Price: £3.48

Review An American Werewolf in London [1981] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Universal Studios:

With an ingenious script, engaging characters, nerve-shredding suspense, genuinely frightening set-pieces and laugh-out-loud funny bits An American Werewolf in London is a prime candidate for the finest horror-comedy ever made. Americans David (David Naughton) and Jack (Griffin Dunne) are backpacking in northern England when Jack is killed by a wild beast and David is bitten. Back in London David finds himself falling in love with a nurse, Alex (played with winning charm by Jenny Agutter), and turning into a werewolf. Adding to his problems, an increasingly decomposed Jack keeps coming back from the dead, and he is not a happy corpse. The Oscar winning make-up and transformation scenes still look good and rather than send itself up Werewolf plays its horror seriously, the laughs coming naturally from the surreal situation. Naughton is engagingly confused and disbelieving, desperately coping with the ever more nightmarish world, while Landis delivers one absolutely stunning dream sequence, an unbearably tense hunt on the London Underground and a breathtaking finale. Gory, erotic, shocking and romantic, this unforgettable horror classic has it all. Tom Holland's Fright Night (1985) remixed the formula with vampires, as did Landis himself in Innocent Blood (1992). A disappointing sequel, An American Werewolf in Paris, followed in 1997. -Gary S Dalkin.

Review Image Entertainment / Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 2
Actors & Directors
  • Ub Iwerks
  • Billy Bletcher
  • Gus Edwards
Release date: 1999-07-27
Run time: 190 min.
Creator: Washington Irving
Price: £4.58

Review Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 2 / Image Entertainment:


Review Troma / Terror Firmer [1999] (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Lloyd Kaufman
  • Debbie Rochon
  • Edouard Baer
  • Alyce LaTourelle
  • Will Keenan
  • Lloyd Kaufman
Release date: 2001-01-23
Run time: 114 min.
Creator: Brendan Flynt
Price: £7.73

Review Terror Firmer [1999] (NTSC) / Troma:


Review Walt Disney Video / Walt Disney Treasures: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Ub Iwerks
  • Walt Disney
  • Walt Disney
Release date: 2007-12-11
Run time: 234 min.
Creator: Roy O. Disney
Price: £16.01

Review Walt Disney Treasures: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Walt Disney Video:


Review Vision Video Ltd. / Soul Music - Parte 2: From Terry Pratchett's Discworld [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Jean Flynn
  • Neil Morrissey
  • Andy Hockley
  • Bernard Wrigley
  • Graham Crowden
  • Christopher Lee
Release date: 1997-06-09
Run time: 68 min.
Creator: Terry Pratchett
RRP: £14.99
Price: £14.89

Review Soul Music - Parte 2: From Terry Pratchett's Discworld [1997] / Vision Video Ltd.:


Review Warner Home Video / Eight Legged Freaks [2002] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Hamish McFarlane
  • Patrick Wilson (VI)
  • Rebecca Hobbs
  • Jeremy Callaghan
  • David Arquette
  • Ellory Elkayem
Release date: 2002-10-29
Run time: 99 min.
Price: £3.99

Review Eight Legged Freaks [2002] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Warner Home Video:

Not funny enough to be called a spoof, not scary enough to be outright horror, Eight Legged Freaks is a curious effects-filled pastiche of those mutant B-movies of the 1950s and 60s. The plot is of the standard small-town-overrun-by-giant-spiders variety, after the little critters have been exposed to leaking radiation naturally. Local boy made good David Arquette has returned to the town to make amends with the woman he loves (feisty Sheriff Kari Wuhrer) and to stop the dastardly mayor from selling his father's mine. But before he can sort that out, there is a lot of bug squashing to be done as the CGI spiders cause all manner of havoc and mayhem. Eight Legged Freaks is admittedly a lot of fun, and there are some great set-pieces to enjoy, including a gang of teenage dirt bikers escaping a horde of jumping spiders. It's also quite gory in places, though with only a couple of decent shocks it's hardly likely to induce large-scale arachnophobia. The spiders are impressive but the CGI is painfully obvious and it never feels real. However, if you can suspend your disbelief for an hour and a half you will enjoy this pacey, fun and action-filled popcorn flick. It doesn't ever take itself too seriously and is certainly a lot more fun than producer Dean Devlin's other genre entries, Godzilla and Independence Day. On the DVD: Eight Legged Freaks offers some nice, B-movie poster-style menu screens but little in the way of extras. [+]
There's no making-of, no special effects breakdowns (astonishing given how heavily reliant it is on these to tell the story) and not even any spider-related factoids which seem almost a necessity. What we do get, though, is a fun and sprightly commentary, the theatrical trailer and director's Ellory Elkayem original short film Larger than Life, that formed the basis for its feature-length offspring. Compact, creepy and almost silent, it's a shudder-inducing little movie and far more creepy than the main feature. Technically, the picture is sharp and the bright, comic book colours and cinematography look gorgeous, and the squelching soundtrack is wonderfully crisp. -Jon Weir.

Review Film 2000 / Evil Bong (Tommy Chong) [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Charles Band
  • Bill Moseley
  • Tommy Chong
Release date: 2007-07-23
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.97

Review Evil Bong (Tommy Chong) [2007] / Film 2000:


Review Image Entertainment / The Roger Corman Puerto Rico Trilogy [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • Betsy Jones-Moreland
  • Antony Carbone
  • Robert Towne
  • Beach Dickerson
  • Roger Corman
  • Joel Rapp
  • Robert Bean
Release date: 2006-01-10
Run time: 210 min.
Creator: Philip Roth
Price: £5.91

Review The Roger Corman Puerto Rico Trilogy [1960] / Image Entertainment:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Scary Movie 3 [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Anna Faris
  • Pamela Anderson
  • Charlie Sheen
  • David Zucker
  • Regina Hall
  • Jenny McCarthy
Release date: 2004-06-14
Run time: 81 min.
Creator: Phil Beauman
Price: £14.99

Review Scary Movie 3 [2004] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

This freewheeling parody tosses horror movies, Eminem, The Matrix, and much more into a cinematic blender. Scary Movie 3 centres around Cindy, a bubble-headed young newscaster who believes that a deadly videotape has some mysterious connection to the aliens who've been making crop circles in the cornfield of a local farmer (Charlie Sheen), whose brother hopes to win a local rap contest. Along for the ride are Queen Latifah, George Carlin, Anthony Anderson, Pamela Anderson, Jenny McCarthy, Jeremy Piven, Camryn Manheim, Ja Rule, dozens of rap stars, and Leslie Nielsen as the President of the US. There's no need to have seen the first two Scary Movie flicks-though a few of the characters recur, the movie leapfrogs from gag to goofy gag, plundering The Ring, Signs and The Others as needed. It's silly and slapdash, but with a decent dose of laughs. -Bret Fetzer, Amazon. com.

Review Anchor Bay / Elvira, Mistress of the Dark/Transylvania 6-5000 (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Cassandra Peterson
  • James Signorelli
  • William Morgan Sheppard
  • Joseph Bologna
  • Rudy De Luca
  • Jeff Goldblum
  • Daniel Greene
Release date: 2003-09-09
Run time: 190 min.
Creator: Sam Egan
Price: £3.94

Review Elvira, Mistress of the Dark/Transylvania 6-5000 (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Anchor Bay:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / From Dusk Till Dawn 2 - Texas Blood Money [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Brett Harrelson
  • Scott Spiegel
  • Robert Patrick
  • Bo Hopkins
  • Duane Whitaker
  • Muse Watson
Release date: 2002-07-01
Run time: 84 min.
Creator: Boaz Yakin
RRP: £14.99
Price: £2.80

Review From Dusk Till Dawn 2 - Texas Blood Money [2000] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

B-movie mavens turned A-list genre fiends Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino teamed up in 1996 to take vampire gothic south of the border into spaghetti Western territory for the gory cult film From Dusk Till Dawn. The high-concept mix of southwestern criminals versus supernatural nasties proved too irresistible for either of the video-hound creators to allow it to remain dead (or undead, as the case may be), so they plotted and produced a pair of direct-to-video sequels. Tarantino takes a story credit on the first, a heist film coscripted and directed by Scott Speigel. A Mexican bank robbery helmed by drawling criminal Robert Patrick (Terminator 2) turns into a literal bloodbath when his crew are turned into hungry bloodsuckers. Speigel, a buddy of Sam Raimi, tops both Tarantino and Rodriguez for sheer cinematic acrobatics, putting his camera in the most absurd places (even from inside the mouth of a vampire chomping down on a victim) and driving the film with adrenaline-charged overkill, but despite some clever scenes and a hilarious Psycho spoof, From Dusk Till Dawn 2-Texas Blood Money turns into another aggressively trashy latex-mask and rubber-bat gorefest as cops and robbers team up against the fanged gang. Bo Hopkins costars as the police detective dogging Patrick's trail. Bruce Campbell and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen make cameos in the jokey opening sequence and Speigel and fellow director Kevin Smith briefly appear as vampire bait. Bartender Danny Trejo is the only returning cast member. -Sean Axmaker A direct-to-video sequel, From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money begins as another cowboy noir, with ex-con Robert Patrick playing cat and mouse with Texas Ranger Bo Hopkins. It segues into horror as heist man Duane Whitaker runs into a bat on the highway and proceeds to turn his gang into vampires who engage during a total eclipse in a Wild Bunch-style bank raid-cum-shootout. [+]
The players add a little Tex-Mex grit to Tarantino-style dialogue (a debate about whether porno movies need plots), but a busy, bloody climax doesn't disguise the very thin storyline. On the DVD: Texas Blood Money comes to DVD in a great-looking 1. 85:1 widescreen print which shows off the attempt made by director Scott Spiegel to add visual quality to a rerun of the original's plot. There are no extra features. -Kim Newman.

Review 2 Entertain Video / The League Of Gentlemen, Series 3 [2002] [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Mark Gatiss
  • Jeremy Dyson
  • Reece Shearsmith
  • Paul Hays-Marshall
  • Steve Pemberton
Release date: 2003-11-10
Run time: 180 min.
Creator: Peter Edwards
RRP: £14.99
Price: £1.98

Review The League Of Gentlemen, Series 3 [2002] [1999] / 2 Entertain Video:

The third series of The League of Gentlemen takes the portmanteau horror approach of their Christmas Special and extends it daringly across the entire six episodes. Here, each half-hour instalment is a self-contained story featuring various familiar and less well-known inhabitants of Britain's most accursed town, Royston Vasey. But each individual tale leads-horribly, inevitably-towards a single shocking event, the full circumstances of which are only realised in a final, macabre twist. It's all far too bleak to be called comedy, just too damn funny to be anything else. This is a team who have always defined their own rules, nowhere more boldly than here. Opening with a funky new theme tune, the six episodes feature-among others-ex-con Pauline and Mickey in a touching tale of transvestisism; Lance the one-armed comedy shop owner yearning for a new limb; foul-tempered Geoff Tipps trying to make it as a stand-up comic in "Lundun"; some eye-popping fetishist behaviour at the local B&B; seedy goings-on in the massage parlour; and, most horrendously of all, the dreaded return of Papa Lazarou. It all proved too much for some viewers-too grotesque, too offbeat, too surreal. Packed with knowing references to obscure movies and filled with the most unpleasant characters ever to grace a "sitcom", this is certainly an uncompromising series, and one that invites fascinated speculation on what dark delights await in their upcoming movie. On the DVD: The League of Gentlemen, Series 3 two-disc set maintains the high standard of extra features established by the previous series. Here there's more raucous "Local Gossip" with the four gents on the first disc, plus a second disc of insightful background material including: a 30-minute making of documentary by Adam Buxton (of Adam and Joe); a candid video diary from Steve Pemberton; a truly dire magic tutorial from Dean Tavalouris (Reece Shearsmith); Joby Talbot's music score; an interview with costume designer Yves Barre; outtakes and deleted scenes; plus a Mike King Enterprises editing suite, enabling you to muck about with the ending sequence and ruin it completely. [+]
-Mark Walker.

Review Image Entertainment / Monsters Crash the Pajama Party: Spook Show Spectacular [1965] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Bert I. Gordon
  • Richard Carlson
  • Juli Reding
  • Lugene Sanders
  • Joe Turkel
  • Susan Gordon
  • David L. Hewitt
Release date: 2001-09-11
Run time: 214 min.
Creator: Jean Hewitt
Price: £4.69

Review Monsters Crash the Pajama Party: Spook Show Spectacular [1965] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Image Entertainment:


Review HBO Home Video / Full Eclipse [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Anthony John Denison
  • Anthony Hickox
  • Bruce Payne
  • Mario Van Peebles
  • Patsy Kensit
  • Jason Beghe
Release date: 2001-08-21
Run time: 93 min.
Creator: Richard Christian Matheson
Price: £3.87

Review Full Eclipse [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / HBO Home Video:


Review First Look Pictures / A Little Trip to Heaven [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Baltasar Kormákur
  • Juan Carlos Pardo Pardo
  • Forest Whitaker
  • Maria Fernandez Ache
  • Kharl Anton Leigh
  • Peter Coyote
Release date: 2007-03-13
Run time: 87 min.
Price: £4.28

Review A Little Trip to Heaven [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / First Look Pictures:


Review Jef Films / Scarecrows [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Ted Vernon
  • Michael Simms
  • William Wesley
Release date: 2007-02-19
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £4.83

Review Scarecrows [1988] / Jef Films:


Review Lions Gate / 2001 Maniacs [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Marla Malcolm
  • Jay Gillespie
  • Lin Shaye
  • Robert Englund
  • Giuseppe Andrews
  • Tim Sullivan
Release date: 2006-03-28
Run time: 87 min.
Creator: Chris Kobin
Price: £6.01

Review 2001 Maniacs [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lions Gate:


Review MGM / Deranged/Motel Hell (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Paul Linke
  • Rory Calhoun
  • Cosette Lee
  • Alan Ormsby
  • Roberts Blossom
  • Nancy Parsons
  • Jeff Gillen
  • Kevin Connor
Release date: 2002-08-27
Run time: 183 min.
Creator: Tim Tuchrello
Price: £6.82

Review Deranged/Motel Hell (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:


Review Troma / Mother's Day [1980] (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Nancy Hendrickson
  • Deborah Luce
  • Holden McGuire
  • Tiana Pierce
  • Charles S. Kaufman
  • Billy Ray McQuade
Release date: 2000-10-31
Run time: 90 min.
Creator: Joseph Mangine
Price: £8.36

Review Mother's Day [1980] (NTSC) / Troma:


Models & Brands:
Scary Movie 4 [Blu-ray] [2006], An American Werewolf in London [1981] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Cartoons That Time Forgot: The Ub Iwerks Collection, Vol. 2, Terror Firmer [1999] (NTSC), Walt Disney Treasures: Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (REGION 1) (NTSC), Soul Music - Parte 2: From Terry Pratchett's Discworld [1997], Eight Legged Freaks [2002] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Evil Bong (Tommy Chong) [2007], The Roger Corman Puerto Rico Trilogy [1960], Scary Movie 3 [2004], Elvira, Mistress of the Dark/Transylvania 6-5000 (REGION 1) (NTSC), From Dusk Till Dawn 2 - Texas Blood Money [2000], The League Of Gentlemen, Series 3 [2002] [1999], Monsters Crash the Pajama Party: Spook Show Spectacular [1965] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Full Eclipse [1993] (REGION 1) (NTSC), A Little Trip to Heaven [2005] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Scarecrows [1988], 2001 Maniacs [2004] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Deranged/Motel Hell (REGION 1) (NTSC), Mother's Day [1980] (NTSC)

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