First released in 1984, Footloose now enjoys the same sort of semi-ironic nostalgic cachet as John Hughes' contemporary schlock-fests about angst-ridden teens with silly hair. This is partly due to the fact that, as breathtakingly predictable kids-against-the-squares romps go, it's really pretty tolerable, but it's mostly because of the soundtrack. The songs that appear in the film--notably Kenny Loggins' infectiously vapid title track, and gale-force screecher Bonnie Tyler's excruciating "Holding Out for a Hero"--are possessed of an awfulness so monolithic that they have transcended their era and become reliable floor-fillers at 80s nostalgia discos all over the western world. The plot, such as it is, sees the eerily androidal Kevin Bacon playing a hip rock & roll youth from the big city rebelling against the strictures of the conservative small town in which he finds himself living. Inevitably, he falls for the daughter of his nemesis, the local preacher (the latter, it has to be said, is played with some aplomb by John Lithgow, who very nearly wrings depth from a character otherwise straight out of the colour-by-numbers guide to movie-making). Inevitably, there are some dance sequences. Inevitably, the kids win out, and the grown-ups realise that maybe they aren't so bad after all. On the DVD: Footloose can be watched on disc, should you so desire, dubbed in German, Spanish, French or Italian. There also subtitles available in pretty well every European language, as well as Arabic, Hebrew, Russian and Turkish. Other than that there are no extras. --Andrew Mueller
Director Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night) took over the franchise with this first sequel in the series, though the film doesn't look much like his usual stylish work. (Superman III is far more Lesteresque.) Still, there is a lot to like about this film, which finds Superman grappling with the conflict between his responsibilities as Earth's saviour and his own needs of the heart. Choosing the latter, he gives up his powers to be with Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), but the timing is awful: three renegades from his home planet, Krypton, are smashing up the White House, aided by the mocking Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman). The film isn't nearly as ambitious as its predecessor, but the accent on relationships over special effects (not that there aren't plenty of them) is very satisfying. --Tom Keogh
The dark, brooding tone of Conan the Barbarian is replaced in this rousing sequel by a lighter, more humorous tone and one of the campiest casts ever assembled. In Conan the Destroyer, our massively muscular hero (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is assigned by a duplicitous queen (Sarah Douglas) to escort a virgin princess (Olivia d'Abo) on a treacherous trek to a crystal palace where they will retrieve a priceless gemstone. Basketball champ and self-described Lothario Wilt Chamberlain plays Bombaata, a warrior sent on a secret mission to kill Conan, and the androgynous Grace Jones plays Zula, a wild woman who becomes Conan's loyal ally. Some consider this sequel a disappointment but the film makes no apologies for its silliness, and that's the key to its success as gloriously pulpy entertainment. --Jeff Shannon
The success of the first year meant that Stargate SG-1's second series could afford to spread its wings. In only the second episode, Carter is temporarily possessed by a good Goa'uld. This immediately allowed for both any amount of quick fix inside knowledge as well as story off-shoots, now that the show was bent on franchise longevity. There appeared to be information overload (splinter group Tok'ra, Earth's second Gate, Machello, endless Apophis encounters), as the finely interwoven threads of alien histories and inter-relationships were developed. But thankfully, SG-1 never lost sight of the need for great individual stories. There was a planet of Native American Indians; a planet on the edge of a Black Hole; a planet of aliens sensitive to sound. Even a planet run by Dwight Schultz! Better still, they found time to have fun with their universe, too. "1969" remains one of the best comic romps the series has enjoyed, and is a near-perfect self-contained time-travel story to boot. The team of actors had obviously bonded early on in the first year. It may be a bit of a military faux pas that there is only ever four of them leading every major explorative expedition, but the limited number of principals is actually something else the show has always had in its favour, allowing quality screen time to be spent on each of them from the outset (although Richard Dean Anderson would probably rather not have spent an entire episode impaled by a spike). --Paul Tonks
Syd March (Landry Jones) is an employee at The Lucas Clinic - a company that sells injections of live viruses harvested from sick celebrities to fans who wish to fulfil their obsessive desire for real intimacy with their idols.
In this second Conan epic warrior is asked by the evil Queen Taramis to accompany a beautiful young princess to find a magic treasure. If he returns with the treasure and the virgin the Queen promises to bring Conan's beloved Valeria back from the dead. But little does he know that she plans to kill them both or that the return of the treasure will mean the extinction of mankind...
All 13 episodes of the CBBC series! History with the nasty bits left in! Based on the bestselling series of books for kids (and for adults but they just won't admit it) Horrible Histories is an anarchic surprising and unconventional take on history's most gruesome and funny moments. Foul facts rotten rulers beastly battles and evil inventions feature in horribly hilarious sketches songs cartoons and quizzes - all linked by the show's host a talking rat! From Woeful World Wars Measly Middle Ages and Savage Stone Age to Cut-throat Celts Groovy Greeks Rotten Romans Vicious Vikings and Awful Egyptians history has never been so horrible!
Return of the Living Dead III is the third go-round for a premise intended as both a sequel to and a satire of the George A Romero Living Dead films. This could just as easily have been an entry in director Brian Yuzna's Re-Animator series, and indeed the plot nugget seems derived from the last shot of Re-Animator itself, as a devoted youth (J. Trevor Edmond) revives his freshly dead girlfriend (Mindy Clarke) with trioxin, a military zombie-making gas, and learns to regret his actions. Though it has some left-field ideas--the heroine turns herself into a DIY Hellraiser Cenobite poster-girl with extreme body piercing to distract herself from the desire to eat her boyfriend's brain--and effective action, it is still confined by its low budget and thus stuck with ordinary acting, a minimal plot and too many dumb developments. The central thread is the necrophile/SM romance, which ends up in a liebestod clinch in the army base's furnace, but there's a sub-plot about a quartet of zombified gang members which serves mainly to get some violence going every few minutes. Clarke is a striking presence, studded with bits of metal like a punk porcupine, but her performance flat lines even before her death in a motorcycle crash and revival as a zombie, while the rest of the cast--with the honourable exceptions of Kent McCord as a senior officer and Basil Wallace as a mystical down-and-out--are typified by Sarah Douglas' strident militarist mad scientist, who wants to put zombies in armoured exoskeletons and deploy them as combat troops. Nevertheless, this is gruesome fun for the fans, with some imaginative zombie mutilation effects. On the DVD: It's a no-frills full-screen transfer. The only extra is a 50-second trailer.--Kim Newman
In The Brute, Sarah Douglas (Superman II) gives a courageous performance as Diane, a glamorous fashion model trying to escape the brutal blows of her sadistic husband, fearsomely portrayed by Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only). After a particularly savage attack, Diane leaves to stay with photographer friend Mark (Bruce Robinson, writer and director of Withnail & I) and his girlfriend Carrie (Suzanne Stone). Finding solidarity with other victims at a nearby women's refuge, she aims to forge a new life alone, but her violent ex-partner is determined to track her down. Written and directed by Gerry O'Hara (The Pleasure Girls, The Bitch), The Brute is an uncompromising exploitation film which dares to tackle the taboo subject of domestic violence. INDICATOR STANDARD EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES New restoration from a 4K scan of the original negative by Powerhouse FilmsTwo presentations of the film: the more explicit export cut (90 mins); and the uncensored UK version, under its pre-release title, The Brute Syndrome (89 mins)Original mono audioAudio commentary with actor Sarah Douglas and writer and critic Kim Newman (2022)Sticks and Stones (2022, 14 mins): director Gerry O'Hara recalls the film's origins and incurring the wrath of the women's liberation movementUK theatrical prologue (1977): a 'psychiatrist' contextualises the film's themesThe Sea Can Kill (1976, 27 mins): Royal Navy short, written and directed by Gerry O'Hara, about surviving a disaster at seaThis Week in Britain: 'Erin Pizzey' (1978, 5 mins): interview with the inspirational founder of the world's first refuge for women, produced by the Central Office of InformationOriginal theatrical trailersImage gallery: promotional and publicity materialNew and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
In The Brute, Sarah Douglas (Superman II) gives a courageous performance as Diane, a glamorous fashion model trying to escape the brutal blows of her sadistic husband, fearsomely portrayed by Julian Glover (For Your Eyes Only). After a particularly savage attack, Diane leaves to stay with photographer friend Mark (Bruce Robinson, writer and director of Withnail & I) and his girlfriend Carrie (Suzanne Stone). Finding solidarity with other victims at a nearby women's refuge, she aims to forge a new life alone, but her violent ex-partner is determined to track her down. Written and directed by Gerry O'Hara (The Pleasure Girls, The Bitch), The Brute is an uncompromising exploitation film which dares to tackle the taboo subject of domestic violence. Unseen since the days of early days of VHS, The Brute now returns in a Blu-ray worldwide premiere.
Who will claim the V for victory? Is there life out there? Finally we know. Because they are here. Alien spacecraft with humanlike passengers have come to Earth. They say they come in peace for food and water. The water they find in our reservoirs. The food they find walking about everywhere on two legs. That saga that began with V now culminates in a struggle to save the world in V: The Final Battle. Sci-fi film stalwarts Marc Singer Robert Englund and Michael Ironside head a
Return of the Living Dead III is the third go-round for a premise intended as both a sequel to and a satire of the George A Romero Living Dead films. This could just as easily have been an entry in director Brian Yuzna's Re-Animator series, and indeed the plot nugget seems derived from the last shot of Re-Animator itself, as a devoted youth (J. Trevor Edmond) revives his freshly dead girlfriend (Mindy Clarke) with trioxin, a military zombie-making gas, and learns to regret his actions. Though it has some left-field ideas--the heroine turns herself into a DIY Hellraiser Cenobite poster-girl with extreme body piercing to distract herself from the desire to eat her boyfriend's brain--and effective action, it is still confined by its low budget and thus stuck with ordinary acting, a minimal plot and too many dumb developments. The central thread is the necrophile/SM romance, which ends up in a liebestod clinch in the army base's furnace, but there's a sub-plot about a quartet of zombified gang members which serves mainly to get some violence going every few minutes. Clarke is a striking presence, studded with bits of metal like a punk porcupine, but her performance flat lines even before her death in a motorcycle crash and revival as a zombie, while the rest of the cast--with the honourable exceptions of Kent McCord as a senior officer and Basil Wallace as a mystical down-and-out--are typified by Sarah Douglas' strident militarist mad scientist, who wants to put zombies in armoured exoskeletons and deploy them as combat troops. Nevertheless, this is gruesome fun for the fans, with some imaginative zombie mutilation effects. On the DVD: It's a no-frills full-screen transfer. The only extra is a 50-second trailer.--Kim Newman
If you like big fake dinosaurs--and who doesn't?--then The People That Time Forgot is the movie for you. The third in a loosely themed trilogy of Edgar Rice Burroughs adaptations from director Kevin Connor, all of which starred Doug McClure, this one also features Patrick Wayne (son of John) as the intrepid Major Ben McBride, searching the Arctic for his lost friend (McClure). Sarah Douglas is at his side as Charly, the spunky lady photographer with a dainty puckish streak. As luck would have it, they come across a tropical zone that is home to big fake dinosaurs, surly Neanderthals and nubile cavewomen with truly astonishing cleavages. Ah, but if only it were that simple. An evil rival tribe has been exterminating the gentle cave people and must be stopped. Whatever else you may want to say about producers Samuel Z Arkoff and John Dark, they simply do not skimp on explosions. The People That Time Forgot has a detonation-filled corker of an ending that leaves the cast absolutely showered with dirt clods. Highly entertaining. --Ali Davis
Prince Malachi (Luke Goss) is forced to take on the role of King after his father dies suddenly. He returns to a land that has been overthrown by a coven of witches lead by the Red Queen (Sarah Douglas). In order to save his kingdom he must fight their darkness and bring them to defeat.
DVD Chained Heat a prison thriller staring Jack Scalia rated 18
The complete third series of this much loved classic crime TV show featuring 14 episodes uncut and digitally remastered! A brilliant fast-paced series The Professionals chronicles the lives and exploits of the men of covert British security unit CI5 (Criminal Intelligence 5) in particular the unit's top operative partnership of ex-cop Ray Doyle (Martin Shaw) and former mercenary and ex-SAS paratrooper William Bodie (Lewis Collins) and their superior officer the gruff but fatherl
More episodes from the cult television series starring Lewis Collins Martin Shaw and Gordon Jackson. Episodes include: 'The Purging of CI5' 'Backtrack' 'Stopover' 'Dead Reckoning' 'The Madness of Mickey Hamilton' 'A Hiding to Nothing' 'Runner' 'Servant of Two Masters'.
Disc 1: Puppetmaster OneAlex Whitaker and three other gifted psychics are investigating rumours that the secret of life has been discovered by master puppeteer Andre Toulon. But the psychics quickly discover Toulon's secret of death in the form of five killer puppets - each one uniquely qualified for murder and mayhem. Together they're an army of skilled assassins diabolically programmed to guard the deadly secrets of the Puppet Master. Disc 2: Puppetmaster TwoYou can't keep a good man down or a Puppet Master buried as the puppets return to exhume their beloved creator in Puppet Master II. This time the little devils are after the special fluid that keeps them alive which is only found in...you guessed it... human brains! The puppets - led by a new member the flamethrowing Torch - are happy to shed some light on the (brain) matter as they tunnel burn strangle and hook to survive. Disc 3: Puppetmaster ThreeAfter hearing that Andre Toulon's puppets have no strings but rather seem to have a life of their own Dr. Hess a Gestapo henchman during WWII sends the Gestapo to the theatre to kidnap them. During the melee Toulon's wife Elsa is killed and Toulon is whisked away by the Nazis. However on the way to headquarters the puppets attack the Gestapo and escape with Toulon. Now Toulon begins to plan his revenge. He creates a new puppet Six-Shooter models Blade after a pasty-faced Nazi and uses Elsa's essence to create Leech Woman. Now Toulon's army is ready to take revenge...
The Swamp Thing returns to battle the evil Dr. Arcane.
Available for the first time on DVD! The Swamp Thing returns to battle the evil Dr. Arcane who has a new science lab full of creatures transformed by genetic mutation...
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