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Review Universal Studios / The Mummy Returns [Blu-ray] [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • John Hannah
  • Arnold Vosloo
  • Brendan Fraser
  • Alun Armstrong
  • Patricia Velasquez
  • Stephen Sommers
Release date: 2008-07-22
Run time: 230 min.
Creator: Alan Silvestri
Price: £11.95

Review The Mummy Returns [Blu-ray] [2001] / Universal Studios:

"We don't have time for subtle," says Brendan Fraser, the star of The Mummy Returns, neatly encapsulating the relentless pace and hammerheaded tone of the film. As is the way of sequels here we have more, more, more of the same formula: more explosions, more action and more mind-numbingly endless CGI effects. Once again borrowing shamelessly from the Indiana Jones series, The Mummy Returns, like its predecessor, has boundless energy but lacks the stylish verve and charm of Spielberg's trilogy. All the original cast are reunited, this time joined by WWF star the Rock in a cameo role designed to plug his spin-off vehicle, The Scorpion King, and young actor Freddie Boath who plays an English eight-year-old in the 1930s whose dialogue borrows from Bart Simpson ("Get a room" and "My dad's gonna kick your arse" are two of his choice phrases). Other cinematic thefts include a Jurassic Park-style creatures-in-the-long-grass sequence and a lengthy triple-threat finale along the lines of Return of the Jedi. Still, despite the wearying relentlessness of its computer-generated effects, endless chases and fights, this is undeniably fun popcorn fodder and provides some memorable scenes along the way, notably Rachel Weisz and Patricia Velasquez battling it out for the affections of nasty old Imhotep. On the DVD: This two-disc "Special Edition" is a treat for fans of the franchise. The first disc has an anamorphic widescreen print of the movie in its 2. 35:1 CinemaScope ratio, and a choice of Dolby 5. 1 or DTS for the headache-inducing soundtrack. [+]
There's a decent commentary from the director and producer, plus a couple of DVD-ROM features. Disc 2 has all the usual stuff, including a 20-minute "making-of" documentary, a five-minute interview with the Rock about The Scorpion King, plus an exclusive trailer for it that is unsurprisingly reminiscent of Conan the Barbarian. There are also some detailed special effects breakdowns of key sequences, a blooper reel of outtakes and a virtual tour of the Universal theme park attraction "The Mummy Returns Chamber of Doom". Sundry trailers, production notes, a music video and an "Egyptology 201" text feature round out a well-loaded second disc. -Mark Walker.

Review Icon Home Entertainment / 30 Days Of Night - Blood Trails [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Trip Hope
  • Victor Garcia
  • Tiffany Barrett
  • Perry Cornelius
Release date: 2008-04-14
Run time: 27 min.
RRP: £4.99
Price: £2.55

Review 30 Days Of Night - Blood Trails [2007] / Icon Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Shutter [2008]
Actors & Directors
  • John Hensley
  • Rachael Taylor
  • Masayuki Ochiai
  • Joshua Jackson
  • James Kyson Lee
  • David Denman
Release date: 2008-09-08
Run time: 82 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.98

Review Shutter [2008] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:

Based on a 2004 Thai horror flick, this surprisingly effective Hollywood remake is actually set in Tokyo. That's where newlywed hubby Joshua Jackson has taken bride Rachael Taylor (Transformers) for an ill-advised honeymoon. They hit a woman standing in the middle of a spooky road, after which all sorts of ghosts seem to emerge from Jackson's camera (he's come to Japan for a fashion-photography gig). Can our plucky heroine, a fish out of water in a confusing city, find the answer to this haunted puzzle? Well, yes, but she won't like what she finds. Shutter is distinguished by director Mayasuki Ochiai's compositional eye, which favours the empty, creeped-out spaces in which ghosts might dwell. The movie also gets into the phenomenon of "spirit photography," which suggests that the dear departed make their presence known as white flashes in snapshots. That stuff's kind of fun; unfortunately, Ochiai's ear for dialogue is as clunky as his eye is sharp, and Jackson and Taylor are saddled with some truly unfortunate exposition. The actors don't leave much of an impression either, although Megumi Okina (leading lady of Ju-on: The Grudge) is sufficiently spooky as a woman who will not be ignored. -Robert Horton, Amazon. com.

Review Universal Studios / The Last Starfighter [HD DVD] [1984] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Kay E. Kuter
  • Dan Mason (III)
  • Dan O'Herlihy
  • Nick Castle
  • Catherine Mary Stewart
  • Lance Guest
Release date: 2007-09-18
Run time: 101 min.
Price: £6.66

Review The Last Starfighter [HD DVD] [1984] [US Import] / Universal Studios:


Review Network / The Shout [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • Susannah York
  • Tim Curry
  • Alan Bates
  • John Hurt
  • Jerzy Skolimowski
  • Robert Stephens
Release date: 2007-10-22
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.93

Review The Shout [1978] / Network:


Review Revolver Entertainment / Wizard of Gore [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Kip Pardue
  • Bijou Philips
  • Crispin Glover
  • Jeremy Kasten
Release date: 2008-08-25
RRP: £12.99
Price: £7.98

Review Wizard of Gore [2007] / Revolver Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / Exorcist - The Beginning [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Izabella Scorupco
  • James D'Arcy
  • Renny Harlin
  • Stellan Skarsgard
Release date: 2005-04-18
Run time: 113 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £0.49

Review Exorcist - The Beginning [2004] / Warner Home Video:


Review 4 Front Video / Long Time Dead [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • James Hillier (II)
  • Marcus Adams
  • Lara Belmont
  • Joe Absolom
  • Lukas Haas
  • Melanie Gutteridge
Release date: 2005-05-02
Run time: 94 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.92

Review Long Time Dead [2002] / 4 Front Video:


Review Entertainment in Video / The Crow - Wicked Prayer [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Emmanuelle Chriqui
  • Lance Mungia
  • Edward Furlong
  • David Boreanaz
  • Dennis Hopper
  • Tara Reid
Release date: 2005-10-24
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.79

Review The Crow - Wicked Prayer [2005] / Entertainment in Video:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Son Of Frankenstein [1939]
Actors & Directors
  • Basil Rathbone
  • Rowland V. Lee
  • Bela Lugosi
  • Boris Karloff
Release date: 2008-05-05
Run time: 95 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £4.93

Review Son Of Frankenstein [1939] / Universal Pictures UK:

Basil Rathbone comes to Transylvania to inherit his father's estate in this second sequel to Frankenstein. The townspeople are suspicious, but young Frankenstein has no interest in reviving his father's work-until he discovers the monster hidden away in the castle, inert but very much intact and watched over by Ygor (Bela Lugosi), a sinister, snaggletoothed peasant with a broken neck. Convinced to revive the creature and vindicate his father's name, Frankenstein toils away in the lab not realising that Ygor plans to use the monster to revenge himself on the jury that sentenced him to hang. Boris Karloff makes his final appearance as the Monster, now little more than a mute, lumbering robot under the hypnotic control of Ygor. Rathbone is a dignified, suave scientist and a marvelous match to Lugosi's mad Ygor, a richly malevolent performance that dominates the film. Lionel Atwill makes a marvelous addition to the Frankenstein gallery as the wooden-armed constable, a legacy of the monster's rampage 25 years before. (Mel Brooks's loving lampoon Young Frankenstein, a veritable remake of this film, features the constable and his lumber limb in a major role. ) Universal abandoned horror films in 1936, but the success of this sequel single-handedly revived the genre. Though lacking the gothic splendor and macabre humor of James Whale's originals, Rowland V. Lee's handsome production remains an intelligent, well-made classic of the genre and Universal's last great horror film. [+]
Lugosi returns as Ygor in The Ghost of Frankenstein. -Sean Axmaker.

Review Universal Studios / Dawn of the Dead [HD DVD] [2004] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Jayne Eastwood
  • Matt Frewer
  • Ving Rhames
  • Zack Snyder
  • Jake Weber
  • Sarah Polley
Release date: 2007-08-28
Run time: 110 min.
Creator: Tyler Bates
Price: £6.53

Review Dawn of the Dead [HD DVD] [2004] [US Import] / Universal Studios:

Are you ready to get down with the sickness? Movie logic dictates that you shouldn't remake a classic, but Zack Snyder's Dawn of the Dead defies that logic and comes up a winner. You could argue that George A. Romero's 1978 original was sacred ground for horror buffs, but it was a low-budget classic, and Snyder's action-packed upgrade benefits from the same manic pacing that energized Romero's continuing zombie saga. Romero's indictment of mega-mall commercialism is lost (it's arguably outmoded anyway), so Snyder and screenwriter James Gunn compensate with the same setting-in this case, a Milwaukee shopping mall under siege by cannibalistic zombies in the wake of a devastating viral outbreak-a well-chosen cast (led by Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Jake Weber, and Mekhi Phifer), some outrageously morbid humor, and a no-frills plot that keeps tension high and blood splattering by the bucketful. Horror buffs will catch plenty of tributes to Romero's film (including cameos by three of its cast members, including gore-makeup wizard Tom Savini), and shocking images are abundant enough to qualify this Dawn as an excellent zombie-flick double-feature with 28 Days Later, its de facto British counterpart. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Arrow Films / Female Vampire [1973]
Actors & Directors
  • Jack Taylor
  • Jess Franco
  • Lina Romay
Release date: 2002-04-22
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £5.37

Review Female Vampire [1973] / Arrow Films:

Eurotrash sex/horror auteur Jesus Franco's Female Vampire delivers nudity, drinking of human body fluids, plentiful zoom shots, languorous music, a vestigial storyline and the odd moment of surrealism (a flapping bat car ornament). It opens with a soulful-eyed brunette (Lina Romay) striding through misty woods wearing only thigh-boots, a leather belt and a black cloak, then chancing across a breeder of tropical birds upon whom she performs an act of oral sex that winds up painfully and fatally for the poor chump. One of Franco's better films, this still has an extremely leisurely pace which means that the story drifts dreamlike (or tediously, depending on your point of view) between protracted but unappealing sexual encounters as a smitten fellow with the requisite 70s porno moustache (Jack Taylor), a vampire-hating doctor (director Franco) and a blind coroner pursue the gloomy Countess for their own reasons. The vampire is mute but has an Anne Rice-style whining voice-over, and the dubbing means that everyone else seems equally dissociated from the words that fail to approximate their lip movements. Fans of Lina's frustrated naked writhings get to see her do the thing on top of several men and women, a bed, a tree and in a bath of blood. To Franco-philes, it's a masterpiece; to everyone else, wearisome tat. On the DVD: Female Vampire on disc comes with a nice widescreen transfer of a print that goes on longer than any previous UK release (though it runs 94 mins, not the 101 listed on the cover); an alternate opening sequence (with the title The Bare Breasted Countess); a fairly complete list of Franco credits; a French trailer (for La Comtesse aux Seins Nus); and four brief alternate scenes from a version of the film with less explicit sex but more blood (i. e. , necks are bitten but not private parts). -Kim Newman.

Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / The Omen [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • David Thewlis
  • Mia Farrow
  • Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick
  • Julia Stiles
  • Liev Schreiber
  • John Moore
Release date: 2006-10-23
Run time: 105 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.00

Review The Omen [2006] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review MGM Entertainment / Hour Of The Wolf [1968]
Actors & Directors
  • Max von Sydow
  • Ingmar Bergman
  • Gertrud Fridh
  • Erland Josephson
  • Georg Rydeberg
  • Liv Ullmann
Release date: 2004-08-02
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £2.98

Review Hour Of The Wolf [1968] / MGM Entertainment:


Review Grindhouse Trailer Classics / Grindhouse Trailer Classics 2 [2008]
Release date: 2008-09-08
Run time: 120 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £8.98

Review Grindhouse Trailer Classics 2 [2008] / Grindhouse Trailer Classics:


Review Artificial Eye / Les Vampires [1915]
Actors & Directors
  • Louis Feuillade
Release date: 2008-03-24
Run time: 339 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £15.47

Review Les Vampires [1915] / Artificial Eye:


Review Columbia TriStar / Curse of the Demon + Night of the Demon (Ws) [1958] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Maurice Denham
  • Jacques Tourneur
  • Dana Andrews
  • Peggy Cummins
  • Niall MacGinnis
  • Athene Seyler
Release date: 2002-08-13
Run time: 178 min.
Price: £11.13

Review Curse of the Demon + Night of the Demon (Ws) [1958] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Columbia TriStar:


Review Network / Tales Of The Unexpected - The Complete Fourth Series
Actors & Directors
  • Judi Bowker; Jeremy Clyde; Rachel Kempson; Michael Kitchen; Gary Burghoff; Harry Andrews; Siobhan McKenna; Nigel Havers
Release date: 2007-07-02
Run time: 425 min.
RRP: £24.99
Price: £8.18

Review Tales Of The Unexpected - The Complete Fourth Series / Network:


Review MGM Entertainment / Haunted Honeymoon [1986]
Actors & Directors
  • Gene Wilder
  • Jonathan Pryce
  • Dom DeLuise
  • Gene Wilder
  • Paul L. Smith
  • Gilda Radner
Release date: 2005-10-17
Run time: 82 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.69

Review Haunted Honeymoon [1986] / MGM Entertainment:

Gene Wilder's Haunted Honeymoon attempts to re-create the charm of those horror spoofs from the 1940s like Hope and Crosby's My Favourite Brunette. Larry (Wilder) and Vickie (wife Gilda Radner) play radio stars who decide to spend their honeymoon in the spooky old manse where Larry grew up with his Aunt Kate (Dom DeLuise in drag). The setup is a good one and the mostly British supporting cast, including Brazil's Jonathan Pryce, are certainly game. Unfortunately, Wilder elicits more chills-and groans-than chuckles (the dialogue is particularly ghastly). In the end, the results come closer to the George Lucas-penned dud Radioland Murders than to Mel Brooks's brilliant Young Frankenstein (featuring Wilder as the good doctor himself). If the Wizard of Oz-type ending doesn't completely redeem it, Haunted Honeymoon is still entertaining enough and seems positively sophisticated compared to the spoofs of more recent vintage (now that's a scary thought!). -Kathleen C. Fennessy.

Review Uca Catalogue / John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars [2001]
Actors & Directors
  • Ice Cube
  • Natasha Henstridge
  • Clea DuVall
  • Jason Statham
  • John Carpenter
  • Pam Grier
Release date: 2004-05-10
Run time: 94 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.49

Review John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars [2001] / Uca Catalogue:

John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars attempts a productive combination of SF elements (a largely terraformed Mars with its long-lost civilisation) and horror (mass possession that turns the victims into rampaging, self-mutilating monsters that kill and burn). A police-force detachment turn up in a mining community to collect a bandit, whose last heist was uncharacteristically violent, and soon find themselves under siege from rampaging hordes who used to be solid citizens. This is a fairly simple set of variations on stock Carpenter elements-a hybrid between Assault on Precinct 13 and In the Mouth of Madness. However, there is some powerful chemistry between Nastasha Henstridge's icy, drug-abusing police lieutenant and Ice Cube's bandit, Desolation Williams, made stronger by the lack of sexual tension. Other characters, such as Pam Grier's tough commander and Clea Duvall's nervous rookie, are more or less defined by plot functions; the mobs never become more than faceless, or facially distorted, anonymous menaces. This is one for die-hard Carpenter fans only. On the DVD: Ghosts of Mars on disc comes with Dolby Digital sound and its original widescreen ratio of 2. 35:1. A sparky commentary by Carpenter and Henstridge is included, which is informative, but otherwise there are uninspiring documentaries on the musical score, the special effects and the difficulties of shooting at night in the Mexican desert, as well as filmographies and the theatrical trailer. -Roz Kaveney.

Browse Horror:

Models & Brands:
The Mummy Returns [Blu-ray] [2001], 30 Days Of Night - Blood Trails [2007], Shutter [2008], The Last Starfighter [HD DVD] [1984] [US Import], The Shout [1978], Wizard of Gore [2007], Exorcist - The Beginning [2004], Long Time Dead [2002], The Crow - Wicked Prayer [2005], Son Of Frankenstein [1939], Dawn of the Dead [HD DVD] [2004] [US Import], Female Vampire [1973], The Omen [2006], Hour Of The Wolf [1968], Grindhouse Trailer Classics 2 [2008], Les Vampires [1915], Curse of the Demon + Night of the Demon (Ws) [1958] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Tales Of The Unexpected - The Complete Fourth Series, Haunted Honeymoon [1986], John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars [2001]

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