"Actor: Oliver Stokowski"

• Das Experiment | DVD | (21/04/2003) from £4.99   |  Saving you £11.00 (220.44%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Inspired by a famous 1971 psychological experiment, Oliver Hirschbiegel's German-language movie Das Experiment finds a group of 20 volunteers randomly divided into 12 prisoners and eight guards and asked to play out their roles for a fortnight while scientists study their reactions. A conflict arises between undercover reporter Fahd (Moritz Bleibtreu), a con with a hidden agenda and the apparently mild-mannered Berus (Justus von Dohnanyi), a guard with a megalomaniac streak. The film begins as a psychological drama as ordinary people settle into the game, with joking displays of resistance by the "prisoners" greeted with increasing brutality from the "guards", but detours into suspense and horror as Fahd, who needs the experiment to get out of hand in order to make his story more saleable, deliberately ratchets up the tension between the factions only to see the situation spiral nightmarishly out of control as various test subjects in both camps edge closer to snapping. With a terrific display of ensemble acting and unforced use of the currently popular claustrophobic semi-documentary look, Hirschbiegel's movie takes its time to get underway, with apparently irrelevant cutaways to Fahd's outside girlfriend (Maren Eggert), but works up to a powerful second half that delivers a sustained symphony of psychological and physical anguish. On the DVD: Das Experiment on disc has an excellent-looking anamorphic widescreen transfer with English subtitles. The only extra feature is the trailer. --Kim Newman

• Das Experiment | DVD | (04/05/2009) from £9.17   |  Saving you £-3.18 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The Experiment is based on the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment conducted in 1971. A makeshift prison is set up in a research lab complete with cells bars and surveillance cameras. For two weeks 20 male participants are hired to play prisoners and guards. The 'prisoners' are locked up and have to follow seemingly mild rules and the 'guards' are told simply to retain order without using physical violence. Everybody is free to quit at any time thereby forfeiting payment. In the beginning the mood between both groups is insecure and rather emphatic. But soon quarrels arise and the wardens employ ever more drastic sanctions to confirm their authority.

• Regular Guys | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £9.97   |  Saving you £5.02 (33.50%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Not your typical buddy movie Regular Guys is a refreshingly witty German comedy that takes a tongue-in-cheek peek at the complexities of relationships - gay straight and somewhere in-between. Christoph a macho cop goes on a bender after his fiance throws him out of the house. After waking in the arms of the very cute (and very naked!) Edgar a gay auto-mechanic Christoph's world is immediately changed. Did he - in a drunken haze - get it on with a man? If he did i

• Hilde's Journey | DVD | (22/05/2006) from £8.07   |  Saving you £9.92 (55.10%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Carpenter Steff (Oliver Stokowski) is left the estate of his ex-boyfriend Martin Hilde son of a wealthy family along with instructions to scatter his ashes at sea. Instead Steff makes a deal with the family to receive a fraction of the inheritance in exchange for the ashes and no contest of the will. Steff needs the money to start up a business but Martin's last lover Rex refuses to let Steff betray Hilde's last wish and steals the urn. They head off on a journey both intend