Following in the reptilian slime trail of Anaconda, this derivative monster movie from early 1998 plays like a cross between Titanic and Tremors, with parts of Aliens tossed in for good measure. Director Stephen Sommers couldn't recognise an original idea if it swallowed him whole-which, by the way, is exactly what happens to a lot of passengers on a luxury ship that is attacked by a giant serpent-like sea creature with a voracious appetite for human flesh. Treat Williams plays the leader of a mercenary crew whose members discover the ravaged ship and wage war on the creature; Famke Janssen joins him as an onboard thief and con artist who just happens to be highly skilled with automatic weapons. Of course, the action grows more intense as the body count rises and along the way the monster is gradually revealed in all of its gruesome glory. A guilty pleasure if ever there was one, Deep Rising arrived in cinemas shortly after another waterlogged thriller, Hard Rain and if nothing else it provides proof that the B-movie monsters of the 1950s are alive and well and as cheesy as ever in the age of digital special effects. -Jeff Shannon.

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.

The series formula started to kick in with this immediate sequel to Lethal Weapon, but that doesn't necessarily make it a weak movie. Joe Pesci joins the fold, Richard Donner directs again, and Mel Gibson and Danny Glover return as LAPD partners, their relationship smoother now that Gibson's character has recovered from his maddening grief over his wife's death. But the reckless Mel and cautious Danny equation, good for a million laughs, settles into place in this story involving a South African smuggler and a new girlfriend (Patsy Kensit) for Gibson. The movie is hardly comfy, though. The last act gets nasty, and a climactic fight between Gibson (who gets the worst of it) and some high-kicking villain is ugly. -Tom Keogh.

Crossfire was nominated for the 1947 Best Picture Oscar won by Gentleman's Agreement. Gentlemen may propose, if not agree, that Crossfire was better. Like its upscale rival, the film noir raises the specter of anti-Semitism in America: just after World War II, an affable Jew (Sam Levene) is beaten to death by one of several GIs out "crawling. " Solving the crime takes all night, but for the audience the killer's identity is scarcely in doubt; Robert Ryan's chilling study in psychopathic bigotry scored him his lone Oscar nomination. He's nearly matched in creepiness by Paul Kelly as an odd nightbird married to sultry Gloria Grahame. Two other worthy Roberts-Young and Mitchum-respectively play the police detective and the Army sergeant wondering which of his guys is a murderer. Incidentally, the hot button in the Richard Brooks novel was not anti-Semitism but homophobia-a sweaty subtext in Edward Dmytryk's film. -Richard T. Jameson.

Only two years separate The Fourth Man, the final Dutch language movie by director Paul Verhoeven, and the explosive commencement of his Hollywood career. Controversy raged about violence in Flesh + Blood, RoboCop and everything else he made thereafter. Yet controversy has always been a part of the filmmaker's work. This savage comedy shocker could well be seen as a trial run for Basic Instinct, since it features an ice-cold seductress (Renee Soutendijk) with mysterious motivations and sexual preferences. The hallucinatory tale follows a novelist (Jeroen Krabbé) first falling for her, and then feverishly investigating whether she's a serial husband killer. The film is full of what would soon be recognised as Verhoeven trademarks: a little blasphemy, a lot of nudity, dispassionate characters and hidden agendas. One of the aspects that caught the eye of international audiences was the film's colourful lighting and camerawork. This was from Jan de Bont, who, thanks in large part to Verhoeven, would go on to direct Speed and others. Many prints of the movie were edited around the world, but it's presented here uncut. Full of symbolic flourishes and allegorical plot points, this is a dizzying display of the type of black comedy that not even Verhoeven can get away with in today's politically aware industry. [+]

The acknowledged inspiration for The X-Files, and the basis for an updated 2005 network version, Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a short-lived 1974 series spun off from a pair of extremely popular made-for-TV movies about the supernatural adventures of dogged newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin). Though plagued by low ratings and critical brickbats, the show has cultivated a huge cult following over the past three decades, which has given rise to this three-disc set, which compiles all 20 episodes of the show. Though none of the episodic stories matches the suspense and writing strength of the Night Stalker or Night Strangler movies, TV horror fans will appreciate the parade of interesting and inventive monsters encountered by Kolchak (including a witches' coven in "The Trevi Collection"; an Aztec cult in "Legacy of Terror"; a Hindu Demon in "Horror in the Heights," which was penned by Hammer Films scribe Jimmy Sangster; and a headless biker in "Chopper," an episode deemed in extreme poor taste by Stephen King and co-written by Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, and Sopranos creator David Chase). McGavin is of course topnotch as Kolchak, and he's well-matched by Simon Oakland as his hot-tempered boss; guest stars include Scatman Crothers, James Gregory, Phil Silvers, Eric Braeden, Tom Skerritt, and Richard Kiel as the monster in two back-to-back episodes. Sadly, no extras accompany this fun collection of Kolchak's creepiest cases. -Paul Gaita.

This typical but well-made action movie, which spawned numerous sequels, means to combine the best elements of the disaster movie with the hard-boiled attributes of traditional action-adventures. When a plane is hijacked to the Middle East by Palestinian terrorists, the Pentagon calls into action the Delta Force, an elite squad of highly trained commandos led by tough guy mainstay Lee Marvin and karate-action-star Chuck Norris. Their mission is simple: to thwart the terrorists and rescue the hostages and the plot concentrates largely on just that, as the team uses its experience and fighting skills to get the job done. Its sometimes preachy patriotic bent occasionally gets in the way of the action and Norris is a one-dimensional figure who at times takes himself too seriously, but his rapport with easy-going veteran Marvin moves the film over some implausible rough spots. While not a groundbreaking contribution to the genre, Delta Force impresses with its straightforward tough-guy style. -Robert Lane.

Deadly Pursuit is the polished chase thriller which marked Sidney Poitier's return to the big screen 11 years after A Piece of the Action (1977). Poitier, already 61 but not looking a day over 45, is an FBI agent hunting a killer who takes mountain guide Tom Berenger's girlfriend hostage and heads into the wilds of Washington State. Inevitably Poitier and Berenger reluctantly join forces, going through the usual mismatched buddy arguments with commendably straight faces and lending a quality of acting which elevates the movie above its routine screenplay. The girlfriend meanwhile is Kirstie Alley in one of her first major feature roles, providing little more than eye candy and enduring her ordeal with hardly a beautifully flowing tress out of place. Director Roger Spottiswoode maintains the suspense well and mounts the action set-pieces with a taut, lean style, though the film lacks the sharp edge of his Under Fire (1983) or the sheer scale of his Bond outing, Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). One major asset is Michael Chapman's gorgeous mountains-and-rivers cinematography, actually filmed in British Columbia. Without the star cast and strong production values Deadly Pursuit could be any of a thousand straight-to-video action flicks, but as it stands is a superior formula adventure. The film was also released with the title Shoot to Kill. On the DVD: Deadly Pursuit comes to disc with no extras bar numerous subtitle options and a choice of a Spanish dubbed version. The original Dolby SR soundtrack has been given a Dolby Digital 5. [+]

Although made in 1956, A Town Like Alice has remained enduringly effective and affecting. Based on Nevil Shute's novel the story revolves around a romance set against the unlikely backdrop of a forced march through the jungles of Malaysia by British prisoners-mostly women and children-captured by the invading forces of Japan. The title is a reference to the homesick yearnings of Australian soldier Joe Harman, played by Peter Finch. He forms a bond with one of the female prisoners, Jean Paget (Virginia McKenna), and their travails are depicted with a remarkable subtlety and commendable lack of corniness. It's a minor classic. On the DVD: The black-and-white picture is presented in 4:3 format, with English subtitles if required. Extra features include a 25-minute "making of" documentary, a collection of behind-the-scenes photographs, potted biographies of the cast and crew and the original trailer. -Andrew Mueller.

Cliffhanger was a 1994 comeback of sorts for action hero Sylvester Stallone, this time thanks to director Renny Harlin (Die Hard 2) and some spectacularly rugged and vertigo-inducing, high-mountain terrain. The opening sequence alone delivers what the title promises, and there's an extraordinary airplane stunt that was later reprised, with modifications, in Air Force One. Stallone, looking as tough and craggy as the mountains themselves, is a rescue climber who finds himself going after a gang of crooks (headed by John Lithgow in his bad-guy mode) who've hijacked a US Treasury plane and crash landed in the Rockies with millions of bucks. Outrageous action-packed, snow-packed and scenery-packed chase sequences (featuring whirring helicopters, whooshing skis, popping gunfire and clanging pitons that earned the movie Oscar nominations for sound and sound editing) abound. -Jim Emerson, Amazon. com.

Ever a had neighbour from hell? You know, the one who never cleans, makes too much noise at night with his jigsaw and breeds cockroaches and pumps them into your apartment? Never have? Well, pump up your paranoia with this outlandish if mildly enjoyable thriller starring Melanie Griffith and Matthew Modine as San Francisco yuppies-cum-landlords who rent out an apartment in their Pacific Heights house to mild-mannered Michael Keaton in order to make the mortgage payment. What seems like a happy arrangement all around turns hellish when (a) Keaton refuses to pay the rent;(b) firmly entrenches himself in the apartment thanks to some legal manoeuvring; and (c) starts playing with the cockroaches. Ostensibly, Keaton wants to drive Griffith and Modine to bankruptcy and then pick up their fab Victorian house for cheap but as is the way of all thrillers, he's got a sadistic and homicidal bent to back up his real-estate envy. Director John Schlesinger (Midnight Cowboy) manipulates the thrills somewhat effectively, if not gratuitously, especially with Griffith's damsel-in-distress character, turning on the tension in the don't-go-to-the-attic/garage/basement set pieces. Part of the problem of the film lies in its schizophrenic tone: one moment it's a what's-in-the-dark? thriller, at other times a nifty cat-and-mouse game of psychological wills between Keaton and his landlords. Both sides of the movie are effective in their own right, and Keaton is a great psycho, but Schlesinger doesn't quite bring it together, despite a considerably amped-up climax. Still, if the sight of a beautiful house being slowly destroyed is your idea of the ultimate horror, you'll be chilled to the bone. Look for Griffith's mother, Tippi Hedren of The Birds fame, in a cameo role. -Mark Englehart.

The makers of Supernova are apparently counting on the fact that generational turnover renders old formulas fresh again for new audiences. This is the only explanation for a sci-fi thriller that could charitably be called a "homage" to Ridley Scott's trend setting Alien. A medical rescue ship responds to a distress call from a mining colony and finds only one survivor: a strange young man (Peter Facinelli), who comes aboard carrying an even stranger alien artefact. But the plot of this film, which was directed and then disowned by Walter Hill, grows confused as it tries to explain the sinister force that will lead to a star transforming to supernova status, causing a universe-shattering explosion. Some nice sexual tension between James Spader (as the recovering drug-addict co-pilot) and Angela Bassett (as the ship's doctor). Notable mostly, however, for the eerie resemblance, both physical and vocal, between Facinelli and Tom Cruise. -Marshall Fine, Amazon. com.

Superior to Martin Scorsese's punishing 1991 remake, this 1962 thriller directed by J. Lee Thompson (The Guns of Navarone) stars Robert Mitchum as a creepy ex-con angry at the attorney (Gregory Peck) whom he believes is responsible for his incarceration. After Mitchum makes clear his plans to harm Peck's family, a fascinating game of crisscrossing ethics and morality takes place. Where the more recent version seemed trapped in its explicitness, Thompson's film accomplishes a lot with a more economical and telling use of violence. The result is a richer character study with some Hitchcockian overtones regarding the nature of guilt. -Tom Keogh.