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Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Scream [1997]
Actors & Directors
  • Joseph Whipp
  • Wes Craven
  • David Arquette
  • Linda Blair
  • Rose McGowan
  • Wes Craven
Release date: 2001-02-26
Run time: 106 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £2.84

Review Scream [1997] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

With the smash hit Scream, novice screenwriter Kevin Williamson and veteran horror director Wes Craven (A Nightmare on Elm Street) revived the mouldering corpse of the teen horror picture, both creatively and commercially, by playfully acknowledging the exhausted clichés and then turning them inside out. Scream is a postmodern slasher movie, a horror film that cleverly deconstructs horror films, then reassembles the dead tissue, and (like Frankenstein's monster) creates new life. When a serial killer starts hacking up their fellow teens, the media-savvy youngsters of Scream realise that the smartest way of sticking around for the sequel is to avoid the terminal behaviours that inevitably doom supporting players in the movies. They've seen all the movies, and the rules of the genre are like second nature to them. One of the scariest and funniest setups features a kid watching John Carpenter's seminal Halloween on video. As Jamie Lee Curtis is shadowed by Michael Meyers and the kid on the couch yells at her to turn around, Craven reverses his camera and we see that the kid should be taking his own advice. The fresh-faced young cast (including Drew Barrymore, Neve Campbell, Skeet Ulrich, Courtney Cox, and David Arquette) is fun to watch, and their tart dialogue is sprinkled with enough archly self-conscious pop-culture references to make Quentin Tarantino blush. -Jim Emerson.

Review Anchor Bay Entertainment / Sleepaway Camp Trilogy [1983]
Actors & Directors
  • Brian Patrick Clarke
  • Jonathan Tiersten
  • Karen Fields
  • Michael A. Simpson
  • Robert Hiltzik
  • Pamela Springsteen
  • Felissa Rose
Release date: 2004-05-31
Run time: 163 min.
RRP: £29.99
Price: £8.98

Review Sleepaway Camp Trilogy [1983] / Anchor Bay Entertainment:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Friday The 13th Part III [1982] [1970]
Actors & Directors
  • Steve Miner
  • Dianna Kimmell
  • Paul Krata
Release date: 2002-02-04
Run time: 91 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.98

Review Friday The 13th Part III [1982] [1970] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review MGM / The Burning [1981] (REGION 1) (NTSC)
Actors & Directors
  • Larry Joshua
  • Leah Ayres
  • Brian Matthews
  • Brian Backer
  • Tony Maylam
  • Jason Alexander
Release date: 2007-09-11
Run time: 91 min.
Price: £4.01

Review The Burning [1981] (REGION 1) (NTSC) / MGM:


Review Entertainment in Video / Final Destination [2000]
Actors & Directors
  • Ali Larter
  • Tony Todd
  • Kerr Smith
  • Kristen Cloke
  • Devon Sawa
  • James Wong (IV)
Release date: 2000-11-06
Run time: 94 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.49

Review Final Destination [2000] / Entertainment in Video:

While hardly a spiritual upgrade of the slasher film, this high-concept teen body-count thriller drops hints of The Sixth Sense into the smart-alec sensibility of Scream. Helmed by X Files veteran James Wong, who co-wrote the screenplay with long-time creative partner Glen Morgan, Final Destination is an often entertaining thriller marked by an unsettling sense of unease and scenes of eerie imagery. It suffers, however, from a schizophrenic tone and a frankly ludicrous premise. A high school Cassandra, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa of Idle Hands), wakes from a pre-flight nightmare and panics when he is convinced the plane is doomed. His ruckus bumps seven passengers from the Paris-bound plane, which immediately explodes into a fireball on takeoff, but fate hasn't finished with these lucky few and, one by one, death claims them. Wong brings such a funereal tone to these early scenes of survivor's guilt and inevitable doom that the already far-fetched film threatens to veer into unplanned absurdity. Thankfully, the tale loosens up with a playful morgue humour: one of the victims winds up the splattered punch line to a grim joke and elaborate Rube Goldbergesque chains of cause and effect become inspired spectacles of destruction. Final Destination is a pretty silly thriller when it takes itself seriously, and the filmmakers play fast and loose with their own rules of fate, but once they stick their tongues firmly in cheek, the film takes off with a screwy interpretation of the domino effect of doom. -Sean Axmaker On the DVD: A superb commentary from writer Jeffrey Reddick, director James Wong and producer Glen Morgan goes into great detail about the film's background. From the team's involvement with The X-Files through to the fight to keep their title "Flight 180", they're pretty candid about the movie's secrets (cameos and character names) and bringing "Death" to life. [+]
There are also eight minutes of deleted scenes from an expunged sub-plot that led to their original ending. The explanation for its rejection comes in a 13-minute featurette ("The Perfect Souffle"), which demonstrates the result of Hollywood's reliance on test screenings. There's a trailer, cast and crew biographies and two games-"Your Psychic Eye" and "Death Clock"-which are scary enough by themselves. Rounding this exceptional extras package off is a 20-minute featurette on real-life premonitions. -Paul Tonks.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Friday The 13th Part VII The New Blood [1988]
Actors & Directors
  • Terry Kiser
  • Susan Blu
  • John Carl Buechler
  • Kevin Blair
  • Lar Parc-Lincoln
Release date: 2002-12-02
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.99

Review Friday The 13th Part VII The New Blood [1988] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Entertainment in Video / The Nightmare On Elm Street (Seven Disc Collector's Edition)
Actors & Directors
  • Johnny Depp
  • Beatrice Boepple
  • Wes Craven
  • Roseanne Barr
  • Jack Sholder
  • Robert Englund
  • Renny Harlin
  • Lisa Wilcox
  • Stephen Hopkins
  • Charles Russell
Release date: 2004-10-25
Run time: 677 min.
RRP: £39.99
Price: £13.47

Review The Nightmare On Elm Street (Seven Disc Collector's Edition) / Entertainment in Video:


Review Hollywood Pictures Home Video / Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Steve Miner
  • Adam Hann-Byrd
  • Jamie Lee Curtis
  • Adam Arkin
  • Michelle Williams
  • Janet Leigh
Release date: 2007-05-01
Run time: 87 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £3.84

Review Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later [1998] / Hollywood Pictures Home Video:

Halloween is one of the great modern horror films, but as a franchise its track record has been spotty at best, painfully bad at worst. Halloween H2O: Twenty Years Later, directed by horror vet Steve Miner (Friday the 13th parts 2 and 3, House), won't displace John Carpenter's original but it might help you forget the films in between. Miner certainly has: the film begins as if sequels 3 through 6 never happened. Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, reprising her role for the first time in almost two decades) faked her death and is now a single mom and headmistress of an exclusive California private school. She's also a secret alcoholic who lives in fear of her homicidal brother-bogeyman Michael Myers. Guess who decides to show up for a family reunion? The film begins with classic horror-movie exposition (the deserted college campus, Michael's escape, Laurie's waking nightmares) accomplished with some humour and style, but it's all set up for the second half, a driving roller coaster of stalk-and-slash thrills. There's little of the self-conscious genre referencing of Scream and at times the film is a little far-fetched-it is a slasher movie about a knife-wielding homicidal maniac who won't stay dead, after all-but Curtis transforms Laurie from a shrieking victim into an empowered, determined horror-movie heroine who's learned a thing or two from the previous films. Adam Arkin, Josh Hartnett, and TV cutie Michelle Williams (Dawson's Creek) co-star, and the script received uncredited polish from Scream writer Kevin Williamson; Curtis's mom, Janet Leigh, pops up in a cameo. -Sean Axmaker Effectively bypassing the largely rubbish slew of sequels, Halloween H20 picks up 20 years after the second movie, with Laurie Strode now hiding out as the head mistress of a posh boarding school in the California hills after faking her own death and changing her name. She is an emotionally traumatised alcoholic wreck, still struggling with the memories of her near fatal encounters with her psychotic brother Michael Myers years earlier, and so is over-protective of her 17-year-old son John. [+]
Just when she thought it couldn't get much worse, Myers reappears after laying in hiding for the last 20 years. His target is now Laurie's son who, along with a few teenage friends, ditches a school camping trip for a private Halloween party in the now-deserted school, forcing Laurie into a climactic battle with Myers. Halloween H20 is a terrific film for both newcomers and series fans alike. Cleverly bringing events full circle, the movie is packed with enough scares and insider references to keep all audience levels engaged. Director Steve Miner delivers a lean and pacy film, with Curtis delivering a great turn as the scarred and drained horror movie survivor who finally realises the only way to rid herself of her demons is to go up against Michael one last time. There's plenty of shocks and scares and some great set pieces (the rest-stop scene is particularly unnerving). And although the ending seems to bring the series to a definitive close, Myers will soon be back in action in Halloween 8. On the DVD: There's a crisp widescreen picture and good sound quality, but little to shout about in the way of extra features: a short feature exploring the Halloween legend with very little that fans wouldn't already know, a pointless music video and banal trivia game. This is a great opportunity wasted. -Jon Weir.

Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Halloween [2007]
Actors & Directors
  • Danielle Harris
  • Tyler Mane
  • Brad Dourif
  • Malcolm McDowell
  • Sheri Moon
  • Rob Zombie
Release date: 2008-04-28
Run time: 106 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £12.49

Review Halloween [2007] / Paramount Home Entertainment:

More of a supercharged revamp than a remake, Rob Zombie's take on John Carpenter's Halloween expands the back story of masked killer Michael Myers in an attempt to examine the motivation for his first deadly attack, as well as some reasons for his longevity as a horror icon. Zombie's Myers is a blank-eyed teen (played by Daeg Faerch) whose burgeoning mental problems are left unchecked in a horrific home environment; harassed by schoolmates, a randy sister, and his mother's deadbeat boyfriend (William Forsythe, terrific as usual), Myers' homicidal explosion seems inevitable, and intervention by Dr. Sam Loomis (Malcolm McDowell, who offers a fast-talking, hippiefied version of the Donald Pleasance character) does little to impede his development into a mute, unstoppable killing machine (Tyler Mane) bent on finishing off the only survivor of his family's massacre-his sister, now grown into teenaged Laurie Strode (Scout Taylor-Compton). Opening up the psychological motivation of a cipher like Michael Myers is an interesting approach, but Zombie's script possesses neither a depth of character nor dialogue to offer more than a clichéd thumbnail character sketch. Zombie's Halloween isn't terribly suspenseful, either; he has a keen eye for visuals and the details of chaotic environments, but his scares are nothing more than brutal showcases for his special effects team. The end result barely surpasses the original film's numerous sequels, though the Who's Who of cult and character actors in the cast (including Zombie regulars Sid Haig, Bill Moseley and Ken Foree, as well as Brad Dourif, Udo Kier, Clint Howard, Richard Lynch, Danny Trejo, Dee Wallace, and Danielle Harris) adds a touch of late-night monster movie charm. However, the film's best performance belongs to the director's spouse, Sheri Moon Zombie, who brings unexpected pathos to the role of Myers' downtrodden mother. - Paul Gaita.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Halloween - Resurrection [2002]
Actors & Directors
  • Busta Rhymes
  • Rick Rosenthal
  • Katee Sackhoff
  • Sean Patrick Thomas
  • Tyra Banks
  • Ryan Merriman
Release date: 2007-05-01
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £17.99
Price: £3.50

Review Halloween - Resurrection [2002] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

The eighth entry in the series, Halloween Resurrection maintains connections to John Carpenter's original. A prologue picks up the thread of Halloween: H2O, with poor Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) now in a psychiatric hospital and determined to shut down homicidal Michael Myers once and for all. The story then shifts to the old Myers house, where a TV reality show has enticed six teenagers to spend a single night in the spooky home in a plot-line stolen straight from the indie thriller My Little Eye. Needless to say, things are spoiled when Michael barges in: "I so did not sign up for this," sighs the young heroine, when the bloodletting begins. The mayhem is being broadcast live on the Internet, which makes the film a bit like Rear Window with Instant Messaging. The interesting premise is routinely handled, but that's enough to make this one of the better sequels in the series. Maybe they finally finished off Michael in this one, wink wink. -Robert Horton.

Review Warner Home Video / Friday The 13th [1980]
Actors & Directors
  • Harry Crosby (II)
  • Jeannine Taylor
  • Sean S. Cunningham
  • Betsy Palmer
  • Adrienne King
  • Laurie Bartram
Release date: 2003-09-29
Run time: 83 min.
RRP: £13.99
Price: £2.98

Review Friday The 13th [1980] / Warner Home Video:

No matter how many sequels they've made or how big a hit it was in 1980, it's difficult to view the first Friday the 13th as anything but a quickie designed to cram in as many elements from horror movies that had been hits in the late 1970s-most obviously, Halloween and Carrie-while adding as little as possible to the formula. Director Sean S Cunningham has an archetypal plot at his disposal as a group of attractive, shallow teenagers out in the woods to reopen a once-cursed summer camp are murdered in manners designed to show off Tom Savini's gore effects. Kevin Bacon, killed early (arrow through the throat), is the only player who went on to have a career, and he hardly stands out from the strip-Monopoly-playing, goon-acting meat-on-the-hoof teens who fall prey to the mostly unseen murderer. That it's not a total write-off is down to a few neatly edited bits of classical suspense and, two decades on, a simmering nostalgia for a world of bouffant-haired bubbleheads in short shorts (and that's just the guys) observed by edgy subjective camera as the music hisses "kill kill kill". On the DVD: Friday the 13th may be the least worthy of all horror "classics", but it's still nice to have an edition that (unlike earlier video releases) offers a 16x9-enhanced 1. 85:1 restored image and a healthy dose of extras. The hard-sell trailer gives away most of the big scares, and so should be sampled after the film. The making of the movie is covered by a 20-minute "Return to Crystal Lake" featurette and a commentary track with input from many of the creatives (Cunningham, composer Harry Manfredini, stars Adrienne King and Betsy Palmer, writer Victor Miller). Some anecdotes get repeated, but there's a lot of solid background material. -Kim Newman.

Review Uca Catalogue / I Still Know What You Did Last Summer [1999]
Actors & Directors
  • Muse Watson
  • Mekhi Phifer
  • Brandy Norwood
  • Danny Cannon
  • Freddie Prinze Jr.
  • Jennifer Love Hewitt
Release date: 2007-04-16
Run time: 96 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £1.98

Review I Still Know What You Did Last Summer [1999] / Uca Catalogue:

There was so much story left to tell after I Know What You Did Last Summer that the filmmakers brought back all the beloved, surviving characters from the first film for this sequel. Ray (Freddie Prinze Jr), Julie (Jennifer Love Hewitt), and Julie's white tank top (Jennifer Love Hewitt's white tank top) return to once again face a hook-wielding maniac. Not satisfied merely to repeat a theme, director Danny Cannon and screenwriter Trey Callaway add variation by introducing Karla (Brandy) as Julie's best friend in the whole wide world. Karla and Julie have won a summer trip to the Bahamas with their current infatuations but find that they've arrived at the start of the storm season and that at their hotel "Do Not Disturb" signs should flip to say "R. I. P. " One can only hope to hang just such a sign on this repetitive, tedious franchise, especially since this version is less scary than the price of beer in those little hotel room refrigerators. Definite contender for Gratuitous T&A Shot of the Year (it's of Hewitt and that's not meant as a recommendation). -Keith Simanton.

Review Weinstein Company / Black Christmas [HD DVD] [2006] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Lacey Chabert
  • Katie Cassidy
  • Kristen Cloke
  • Michelle Trachtenberg
  • Mary Elizabeth Winstead
  • Glen Morgan
Release date: 2007-06-12
Run time: 95 min.
Price: £4.28

Review Black Christmas [HD DVD] [2006] [US Import] / Weinstein Company:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Scream Trilogy Box Set [1996]
Actors & Directors
  • Neve Campbell
  • David Arquette
  • Skeet Ulrich
  • Wes Craven
  • Drew Barrymore
  • Sarah Michelle Gellar
Release date: 2005-10-03
Run time: 350 min.
RRP: £49.99
Price: £10.49

Review Scream Trilogy Box Set [1996] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

When Randy the video geek rattles off the rules of surviving a horror movie in Wes Craven's Scream, he speaks for a generation of filmgoers who are all too aware of slasher-movie clichés. Playfully scripted by Kevin Williamson with a self-aware wink and more than a few nods to its grandfathers (from Psycho to Halloween to the Friday the 13th dynasty), Scream skewers teen horror conventions with loving reverence while re-creating them in a modern, movie-savvy context. And so goes the series, which continues the satirical spoofing by tackling (what else?) sequels while sustaining its own self-contained mythology. Catty reporter Gale Weathers (Courteney Cox) turns grisly murders into lurid best-sellers, a cult of killer wannabes continues to hunt spunky psycho-survivor Sydney Prescott (Neve Campbell) for their 15 minutes of fame, and a cheesy movie series (Stab) develops within the movie series. Scream remains the high point of the series-a fresh take on a genre long since collapsed into routine, but Scream 2 spoofs itself wittily ("Why would anyone want to do that? Sequels suck!" opines college film student Randy), and delights with more elaborate set-pieces and all-new rules for surviving a horror movie sequel. The endangered veterans of the original film reunite one last time for Scream 3, which plays out on the movie set of Stab 3 (it's a trilogy within a trilogy!). With Williamson gone, replacement screenwriter Ehran Kruger tries to mine the formula one more time. It's a little tired by now, and pale imitations (Urban Legend, I Know What You Did Last Summer) have further drained the zeitgeist, but the film bubbles with bright humour and director Craven is stylistically at the top of his game. As a trilogy, it remains both the most consistently entertaining and self-aware horror series ever made. -Sean Axmaker, Amazon. [+]
com.

Review Pathe Distribution / Jason Goes To Hell - The Final Friday [1993]
Actors & Directors
  • Adam Marcus
  • Kari Keegan
  • John D. Lemay
  • Kane Hodder
  • Alison Smith
  • Erin Gray
Release date: 2003-06-30
Run time: 84 min.
RRP: £5.99
Price: £3.26

Review Jason Goes To Hell - The Final Friday [1993] / Pathe Distribution:


Review Paramount Home Entertainment / Friday The 13th (Part IV) The Final Chapter [1984]
Actors & Directors
  • Lawrence Monoson
  • Crispin Glover
  • Corey Feldman
  • Kimberly Beck
  • Joseph Zito
  • Barbara Howard
Release date: 2002-03-18
Run time: 88 min.
RRP: £12.99
Price: £3.99

Review Friday The 13th (Part IV) The Final Chapter [1984] / Paramount Home Entertainment:


Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers [1995]
Actors & Directors
  • Kim Darby
  • Mitch Ryan
  • Joe Chappelle
  • Paul Rudd
  • Marianne Hagan
  • Donald Pleasence
Release date: 2007-05-01
Run time: 85 min.
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.88

Review Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers [1995] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:


Review Weinstein Company / Wolf Creek [HD DVD] [2005] [US Import]
Actors & Directors
  • Greg McLean
  • Cassandra Magrath
  • Gordon Poole
  • Kestie Morassi
  • John Jarratt
  • Nathan Phillips
Release date: 2006-12-19
Run time: 104 min.
Creator: Francois Tetaz
Price: £3.86

Review Wolf Creek [HD DVD] [2005] [US Import] / Weinstein Company:


Review Entertainment in Video / The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [2003]
Actors & Directors
  • Eric Balfour
  • Marcus Nispel
  • Jonathan Tucker
  • Jessica Biel
  • Erica Leerhsen
  • Mike Vogel
Release date: 2004-03-29
Run time: 98 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £0.65

Review The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [2003] / Entertainment in Video:

The 2003 version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre adheres to the pure-and-simple slasher-movie formula: introduce a gaggle of sexy young people, make vague gestures to distinguish them-Jessica Biel wants to get married and doesn't like pot, so she's our moral compass-then start hacking them to pieces one by one. The visual palette includes grimy crucified dolls, fly-specked pig carcasses, body parts floating in murky jars, a tobacco-chewing redneck sheriff and many slender beams of sunlight cutting through dank, dusty interiors. The camera lovingly photographs Biel's tank-topped bosom and sculpted abs as she's running in terror from a bloated, chainsaw-wielding, human-skin-wearing maniac. This remake lacks the macabre comedy of the original; it's all about the nauseating sensation of waiting for something to jump out of the dark. -Bret Fetzer.

Review Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm / Scream 2 [1998]
Actors & Directors
  • Corey Parker
  • Wes Craven
  • Laurie Metcalf
  • Jerry O'Connell
  • David Arquette
  • David Warner
Release date: 2001-02-26
Run time: 115 min.
RRP: £19.99
Price: £1.89

Review Scream 2 [1998] / Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm:

Fully aware of its status as the sequel to the surprise hit thriller of 1996, this lively follow-up trades freshness for familiarity, playing on our affection for returning characters while obeying-and then subverting-the "rules" of sequels. Once again, movie references are cleverly employed to draw us into the story, which takes place two years after the events of Scream, at a small Ohio college, where the Scream survivors reunite when another series of mysterious killings begins. Capitalising on the guesswork involving a host of potential suspects, director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson have crafted a thriller that's more of a Scream clone than a genuinely inventive new story. But the shocks are just as effective, and escalating tension leads to a tautly staged climax that's simultaneously logical and giddily over the top. Background information for trivia buffs: to preserve the secrecy of plot twists, copies of the screenplay were heavily guarded during production and restricted to only the most crucial personnel. When an early draft was circulated on the Internet, screenwriter Kevin Williamson did rewrites, and subsequent drafts were printed with red ink on brown paper, eliminating the threat of photocopying. None of the cast members knew who the killer was until the final scenes were filmed. - Jeff Shannon.

Models & Brands:
Scream [1997], Sleepaway Camp Trilogy [1983], Friday The 13th Part III [1982] [1970], The Burning [1981] (REGION 1) (NTSC), Final Destination [2000], Friday The 13th Part VII The New Blood [1988], The Nightmare On Elm Street (Seven Disc Collector's Edition), Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later [1998], Halloween [2007], Halloween - Resurrection [2002], Friday The 13th [1980], I Still Know What You Did Last Summer [1999], Black Christmas [HD DVD] [2006] [US Import], Scream Trilogy Box Set [1996], Jason Goes To Hell - The Final Friday [1993], Friday The 13th (Part IV) The Final Chapter [1984], Halloween VI: The Curse of Michael Myers [1995], Wolf Creek [HD DVD] [2005] [US Import], The Texas Chainsaw Massacre [2003], Scream 2 [1998]

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