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Review Nucleus Films / Bloodbath at the House of Death [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Gareth Hunt
  • Vincent Price
  • Pamela Stephenson
  • Don Warrington
  • Kenny Everett
Release date: 2008-07-21
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £9.43

Review Bloodbath at the House of Death [1984] / Nucleus Films:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960]
Actors & Directors
  • Janet Leigh
  • Martin Balsam
  • John Gavin
  • Anthony Perkins
  • Vera Miles
  • Alfred Hitchcock
Release date: 2005-10-17
Run time: 104 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.64

Review Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960] / Universal Pictures UK:

For all the slasher pictures that have ripped off Psycho (and particularly its classic set piece, the "shower scene"), nothing has ever matched the impact of the real thing. More than just a first-rate shocker full of thrills and suspense, Psycho is also an engrossing character study in which director Alfred Hitchcock skillfully seduces you into identifying with the main characters-then pulls the rug (or the bathmat) out from under you. Anthony Perkins is unforgettable as Norman Bates, the mama's boy proprietor of the Bates Motel; and so is Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, who makes an impulsive decision and becomes a fugitive from the law, hiding out at Norman's roadside inn for one fateful night. Psycho gets the masterpiece treatment it deserves on DVD. -Jim Emerson.

Review Hollywood Pictures Home Video / The Faculty [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Clea DuVall
  • Josh Hartnett
  • Shawn Hatosy
  • Jordana Brewster
  • Robert Rodriguez
  • Laura Harris (II)
Release date: 2007-05-01
Run time: 100 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £3.58

Review The Faculty [1999] / Hollywood Pictures Home Video:

Okay, you knew everyone in high school was just a little different: everyone looked at you strangely, the teachers were freaky, and you never could find the right groove to fit into. What if it turned out that it was all because your school was inhabited by creepy aliens from outer space? That's the enjoyably cheesy B-premise for this fun and scary flick from the pen of Scream's Kevin Williamson, the master of the post-modern teen horror film. Directed by Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi), it's The Breakfast Club meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as six disparate students from Herrington High School band together when they discover that an alien life form is invading both the student and faculty bodies, with plans to take over the world. Each of the heroes represents a different high school type: popular babe (Jordana Brewster), picked-on geek (Elijah Wood), goth girl (Clea DuVall), sensitive jock (Shawn Hatosy), new kid in town (Laura Harris), and bad-boy rebel (Josh Hartnett). The plot isn't much-a basic kill-or-be-killed premise spiked with a healthy shot of paranoia-but Willliamson and Rodriguez do a great job of building the tension slowly but surely. The suspense set pieces are genuinely frightening, and the film pokes fun at itself without deflating its scares; Williamson is a master at shifting gears from comedy to horror quickly and adroitly. The young cast doesn't have a weak link among them (with special kudos to Wood, DuVall and heartthrob-in-the-making Hartnett), and Rodriguez gets maximum mileage from the titular faculty, which includes Jon Stewart, Piper Laurie, Salma Hayek, Bebe Neuwirth, and Robert Patrick of Terminator 2. Go to the head of the class, Mr. Williamson. -Mark Englehart.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Cloverfield (2 Disc Special Edition)
Actors & Directors
  • Matt Reeves
  • Mike Vogel
  • Michael Stahl-David
  • Lizzy Caplan
  • Odette Yustman
  • Jessica Lucas
Release date: 2008-06-09
Run time: 81 min.
RRP: £22.99
Price: £12.98

Review Cloverfield (2 Disc Special Edition) / Paramount Home Entertainment:

One of the first things a viewer notices about Cloverfield is that it doesn't play by ordinary storytelling rules, making this intriguing horror film as much a novelty as an event. Told from the vertiginous point-of-view of a camcorder-wielding group of friends, Cloverfield begins like a television soap opera about young Manhattanites coping with changes in their personal lives. Rob (Michael Stahl-David) is leaving New York to take an executive job at a company in Japan. At his goodbye party in a crowded loft, Rob's brother Jason (Mike Vogel) hands a camcorder to best friend Hud (T. J. Miller), who proceeds to tape the proceedings over old footage of Rob's ex-girlfriend, Beth (Odette Yustman)-images shot during happy times in their ex-relationship. Naturally, Beth shows up at the party with a new beau, bumming Rob out completely. Just before one's eyes glaze over from all this heartbreaking stuff (captured by Hud, who's something of a doofus, in laughably shaky camerawork), the unexpected happens: New York is suddenly under attack from a Godzilla-like monster stomping through midtown and destroying everything and everybody in sight. Rob and company hit the streets, but rather than run with other evacuees, they head toward the center of the storm so that Rob can rescue an injured Beth. There are casualties along the way, but the journey into fear is fascinating and immediate if emotionally remote-a consequence of seeing these proceedings through the singular, subjective perspective of a camcorder and of a story that intentionally leaves major questions unanswered: Who or what is this monster? Where did it come from? The lack of a backstory, and spare views of the marauding creature, are clever ways by producer J. [+]
J. Abrams and director Matt Reeves to keep an audience focused exclusively on what's on the screen. But it also makes Cloverfield curiously uninvolving. Ultimately, Cloverfield, with its spectacular effects brilliantly woven into a home-video look, is a celebration of infinite possibilities in this age of accessible, digital media. -Tom Keogh.

Review Warner Home Video / The Exorcist [1974]
Actors & Directors
  • Max von Sydow
  • William Friedkin
  • Lee J. Cobb
  • Ellen Burstyn
  • Jason Miller
  • Kitty Winn
Release date: 1999-10-25
Run time: 117 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.99

Review The Exorcist [1974] / Warner Home Video:

Director William Friedkin was a hot ticket in Hollywood after the success of The French Connection, and he turned heads (in more ways than one) when he decided to make The Exorcist as his follow-up film. Adapted by William Peter Blatty from his controversial best-seller, this shocking 1973 thriller set an intense and often-copied milestone for screen terror with its unflinching depiction of a young girl (Linda Blair) who is possessed by an evil spirit. Jason Miller and Max von Sydow are perfectly cast as the priests who risk their sanity and their lives to administer the rites of demonic exorcism, and Ellen Burstyn plays Blair's mother, who can only stand by in horror as her daughter's body is wracked by satanic disfiguration. One of the most frightening films ever made, The Exorcist was mysteriously plagued by troubles during production, and the years have not diminished its capacity to disturb even the most stoical viewers. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Lionsgate / The Monster Squad [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Robby Kiger
  • Duncan Regehr
  • Andre Gower
  • Fred Dekker
  • Tom Noonan
  • Stephen Macht
Release date: 2007-07-24
Run time: 82 min.
Price: £5.17

Review The Monster Squad [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / Lionsgate:


Review Universal Pictures UK / Thirteen Ghosts [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Embeth Davidtz
  • Matthew Lillard
  • Alec Roberts
  • Tony Shalhoub
  • Shannon Elizabeth
  • Steve Beck
Release date: 2006-09-05
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £9.99
Price: £2.99

Review Thirteen Ghosts [2002] / Universal Pictures UK:

A by-the-numbers haunted house movie, albeit one with some neat twists, a couple of good performances and impressive design work, Thirteen Ghosts is a remake of the 1960 original by exploitation superstar William Castle. When ghost-hunter Cyrus (F Murray Abraham) dies his quietly decent widower nephew Arthur (Tony Shaloub) inherits his house. With almost infinite predictability, he, his teenage daughter (Shannon Elizabeth) and young son, as well as a rival ghost-hunter and Cyrus' untrustworthy tame psychic (Mathew Lillard), are trapped in the house, which is a glass labyrinth of sliding panels and shifting staircases. As the woman ghost-hunter Kalina helpfully explains, the house is "a machine designed by the devil and powered by the dead"-specifically by 12 ghosts, most of them murderously malevolent. Shaloub and Lillard manage to make us care about this farrago and Abraham lends his few scenes his usual malignant authority, but the real star is the inventively designed house itself and the outrageous horror-comic makeup of the ghosts. This is a knowingly trashy film enjoyable on its own level. On the DVD: Thirteen Ghosts comes with a short textual explanation of who Castle was and why he should get this sort of homage, a self-congratulatory making-of documentary and filmographies for cast and crew, as well as odd short featurettes explaining the imagined back-story for each of the ghosts. The disc has Dolby sound and is presented in a 1. 85:1 widescreen ratio. -Roz Kaveney.

Review Starz Home Entertainment / Halloween [1978]
Actors & Directors
  • Donald Pleasence
  • Jamie Lee Curtis
  • P. J. Soles
  • Nancy Loomis
  • John Carpenter
Release date: 2006-09-25
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.79

Review Halloween [1978] / Starz Home Entertainment:


Review Entertainment in Video / Dawn of the Dead [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Zack Snyder
  • Sarah Polley
  • Jake Weber
  • Mekhi Phifer
  • Ving Rhames
Release date: 2004-10-25
Run time: 96 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.43

Review Dawn of the Dead [2004] / Entertainment in Video:

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 Starz Home Entertainment / Creepshow 2 (Special Edition) [1987]
Actors & Directors
  • Michael Gornick
  • Lois Chiles
  • Paul Scatterfield
  • George Kennedy
  • Dorothy Lamour
  • Tom Savini
Release date: 2005-02-21
Run time: 92 min.
RRP: £16.99
Price: £3.85

Review Creepshow 2 (Special Edition) [1987] / Starz Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 (New Edition)
Actors & Directors
  • David Solomon
  • Joss Whedon
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar
  • David Boreanaz
  • Nicholas Brendon
  • Bruce Seth Green
  • James Marsters
  • John T. Kretchmer
  • Alyson Hannigan
  • David Semel
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 930 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £13.43

Review Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 (New Edition) / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Warner Home Video / The Fearless Vampire Killers [1967]
Actors & Directors
  • Jack MacGowran
  • Roman Polanski
  • Alfie Bass
  • Sharon Tate
  • Ferdy Mayne
Release date: 2004-10-18
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £9.64

Review The Fearless Vampire Killers [1967] / Warner Home Video:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / The Village [2004]
Actors & Directors
  • Adrien Brody
  • Sigourney Weaver
  • M. Night Shyamalan
  • Bryce Dallas Howard
  • William Hurt
  • Joaquin Phoenix
Release date: 2005-01-31
Run time: 107 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £3.43

Review The Village [2004] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Even when his trademark twist-ending formula wears worrisomely thin as it does in The Village, M. Night Shyamalan is a true showman who knows how to serve up a spookfest. He's derailed this time by a howler of a "surprise" lifted almost directly from "A Hundred Yards Over the Rim," an episode of The Twilight Zone starring Cliff Robertson that originally aired in 1961. Even if you're unfamiliar with that Rod Serling scenario, you'll have a good chance of guessing the surprise, which ranks well below The Sixth Sense and Signs on Shyamalan's shock-o-meter. That leaves you to appreciate Shyamalan's proven strengths, including a sharp eye for fear-laden compositions, a general sense of unease, delicate handling of fine actors (alas, most of them wasted here, save for Bryce Dallas Howard in a promising debut), and the cautious concealment of his ruse, which in this case involves a 19th-century village that maintains an anxious truce with dreadful creatures that live in the forbidden woods nearby. Will any of this take anyone by genuine surprise? That seems unlikely, since Emperor Shyamalan has clearly lost his clothes in The Village, but it's nice to have him around to scare us, even if he doesn't always succeed. -Jeff Shannon.

Review Pathe Distribution / Wrong Turn [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Rob Schmidt
  • Kevin Zegers
  • Eliza Dushku
  • Desmond Harrington
  • Jeremy Sisto
  • Emmanuelle Chriqui
Release date: 2004-02-02
Run time: 81 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.66

Review Wrong Turn [2003] / Pathe Distribution:


Review Starz Home Entertainment / Bubba Ho-Tep [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Ella Joyce
  • Don Coscarelli
  • Heidi Marnhout
  • Bob Ivy
  • Bruce Campbell
  • Ossie Davis
Release date: 2006-09-25
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £2.81

Review Bubba Ho-Tep [2002] / Starz Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Angel Season 1 (New Edition)
Actors & Directors
  • Charisma Carpenter
  • David Boreanaz
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 917 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £14.00

Review Angel Season 1 (New Edition) / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Angel Season 2 (New Edition)
Actors & Directors
  • David Boreanaz
  • Charisma Carpenter
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 999 min.
RRP: £34.99
Price: £16.49

Review Angel Season 2 (New Edition) / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment / Night Watch [2005]
Actors & Directors
  • Vladimir Menshov
  • Konstantin Khabensky
  • Timur Bekmambetov
  • Valeri Zolotukhin
Release date: 2006-04-24
Run time: 114 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £4.00

Review Night Watch [2005] / 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment:


Review Icon Home Entertainment / Perfect Creature [2006]
Actors & Directors
  • Glen Standring
  • Saffron Burrows
  • Dougray Scott
Release date: 2007-10-22
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.38

Review Perfect Creature [2006] / Icon Home Entertainment:

Perfect Creature imagines a world where vampires and humans peacefully co-exist. The result of a genetic mutation initiated by an ancient virus, the vampires are known as The Brothers. Superior in mind and body to their human counterparts, they are the custodians of genetic science and protect humanity from disease. In return for a dedication to preserving human life, The brothers ask humanity to share only one thing: their blood.

Review Optimum Home Entertainment / Diary Of The Dead - Single Disc Edition [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Shawn Roberts
  • Joshua Close
  • George A. Romero
  • Michelle Morgan
Release date: 2008-06-30
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £6.70

Review Diary Of The Dead - Single Disc Edition [2007] / Optimum Home Entertainment:

George A Romero continues his revival of his iconic zombie franchise with Diary Of The Dead, the fifth film in a series that kicked off back in 1968 with Night Of The Living Dead. And while his latest doesn't manage to match the heights of the earlier films, there's still something refreshing about watching a genuine master of the genre at work. This time around then, Diary Of The Dead heads a little back to basics, with a film that follows a group of amateur filmmakers who find themselves under siege from zombies, allowing the legendary director to take some less-than-subtle swipes at the YouTube generation. Sadly, his cast don't help him very much, ringing in primarily forgettable performances, and this certainly nullifies some of the points that Romero tries to make. Yet when it comes to the zombie action, there's no number you'd call faster than Romero's, and here's where the great man delivers. Diary Of The Dead does work along the law of diminishing returns, and is the weakest of the series, but it's not without a general collection of skilful moments that fans of the genre won't want to miss. Diary Of The Dead isn't a film that you need to have seen the others before it to appreciate, but it is a primarily quite ordinary film from an often-extraordinary director. That said, it still easily eclipses the army of imitators of recent times (the splendid zombie romantic comedy Shaun Of The Dead excepted, of course), and has more than enough horror to fill an empty night. -Jon Foster.

Browse Horror:

Models & Brands:
Bloodbath at the House of Death [1984], Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [1960], The Faculty [1999], Cloverfield (2 Disc Special Edition), The Exorcist [1974], The Monster Squad [1987] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Thirteen Ghosts [2002], Halloween [1978], Dawn of the Dead [2004], Creepshow 2 (Special Edition) [1987], Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 2 (New Edition), The Fearless Vampire Killers [1967], The Village [2004], Wrong Turn [2003], Bubba Ho-Tep [2002], Angel Season 1 (New Edition), Angel Season 2 (New Edition), Night Watch [2005], Perfect Creature [2006], Diary Of The Dead - Single Disc Edition [2007]

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