"Director: Joe Dante"

• The Hole | Blu Ray | (17/01/2011) from £20.00   |  Saving you £2.99 (14.95%)   |  RRP £22.99

  Four teenagers discover a mysterious hole that leads to an underground bomb shelter. Two weeks later only one of them emerges alive. Can she be trusted to tell the truth about what really happened?

• Small Soldiers | Blu Ray | (06/11/2017) from £7.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Here's the pitch for Small Soldiers: "It's like Toy Story but these toys that come to life really kick butt!" That's essentially it for this breezy popcorn flick. In a very smart first 10 minutes, new toy-company owner Denis Leary tells his crew he wants toys "that play back". Hence the small soldiers land in Anytown, USA and the loner kid Alan (Gregory Smith) opens them up before they are supposed to be on the shelves. Those military-grade chips sure make them smart and give the toys plenty of pithy retorts to boot. There's plenty of violence and action, most of it fun enough. The vocal talents, including Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella and cast members of The Dirty Dozen are inspired characters, the humans less so. With Gremlins director Joe Dante at the helm, it plays like a sequel to that 80s fantasy. Amazing visual effects, of course. --Doug Thomas, Amazon.com

• The 'Burbs | DVD | (28/03/2016) from £9.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (50.05%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Tom Hanks stars in The 'Burbs, a sporadically funny extended sketch piece about a gaggle of suburban neighbours so preoccupied with mysteries taking place behind the closed doors of a newcomer that they go to extremes to look inside. The film is essentially a simple satire from director Joe Dante, for whom suburbia has been ripe territory for such comic-horror stories as Gremlins, Explorers, Matinee and Small Soldiers. Of all Dante's movies, The 'Burbs has the least story material to go around, and it depends heavily (and with modest success) on the comic powers of its cast--including Bruce Dern as a paranoid nut, Hanks as a Mr Normal type who loses perspective, and Rick Ducommun as Hanks' neurotic best friend. These appealing people hold one's attention, but by the end of the film, with nothing much having happened, even the cast can't mitigate an empty feeling. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• The Hole | DVD | (17/01/2011) from £4.90   |  Saving you £15.09 (307.96%)   |  RRP £19.99

  From director Joe Dante comes a teen horror 3D adventure that explores the fears and secrets buried in the mind of young people.

• Amazon Women on the Moon (Dual Format) | Blu Ray | (02/04/2018) from £12.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  For the first time on Blu-Ray anywhere!! Amazon Women on the Moon is a 1987 American satirical comedy film that parodies the experience of watching low-budget movies on late-night television. The film, featuring a large ensemble cast, was written by Michael Barrie and Jim Mulholland, and takes the form of a compilation of 21 comedy skits directed by five different directors: Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis, and Robert K. Weiss. The title Amazon Women on the Moon refers to the central film-within-a-film, a spoof of science-fiction movies from the 1950s that borrows heavily from Queen of Outer Space (1958) starring Zsa Zsa Gabor, itself a movie that recycles elements of earlier science-fiction works such as Cat-Women of the Moon (1953), Fire Maidens from Outer Space (1955), and Forbidden Planet (1956). Film actors making cameo appearances in various sketches included Rosanna Arquette, Ralph Bellamy, Griffin Dunne, Carrie Fisher, Steve Forrest, Steve Guttenberg, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kelly Preston, and Henry Silva, alongside television actors such as Ed Begley, Jr., Bryan Cranston, David Alan Grier, Howard Hesseman, Peter Horton, William Marshall, Joe Pantoliano, Robert Picardo, and Roxie Roker. Other notable people in the cast included voice actors Corey Burton and Phil Hartman, talk show host Arsenio Hall, adult film actress Monique Gabrielle, science-fiction writer Forrest J. Ackerman, B-movie stars Lana Clarkson and Sybil Danning, musician B. B. King, radio personalities Roger Barkley and Al Lohman, composer Ira Newborn, director Russ Meyer, model Corinne Wahl, comedian Andrew Dice Clay, Firesign Theater member Phil Proctor, and independent film actor Paul Bartel. John Landis had previously directed The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), which employed a similar sketch anthology format.

• Matinee | DVD | (30/06/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The citizens of Key West in Florida get the fright of their lives when horror genius Lawrence Woolsey brings his latest low-budget movie to town.

• Piranha | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  As a producer, Roger Corman has always loved to make low-budget rip-offs of hit movies, and Piranha is his typically cheeky take on Jaws--and, as so often with Corman, in many ways it's funnier and more entertaining than the original. Directed with gusto by schlock-horror specialist Joe Dante and sharply scripted by John Sayles, it replaces one huge underwater toothy monster with dozens of little ones and ups the body count by a factor of 10 or so. Two hapless teenagers, hiking in a remote mountain region, stumble on a secret US military research lab. They don't last long, but their intrusion leads to the release into the local river system of a huge shoal of super-intelligent piranha, originally specially bred for use in Vietnam. Downstream from the virulent little munchers lie a kiddies' holiday camp and a tacky new waterfront theme park. Lunch time, fellas! Sayles, with his staunch left-wing credentials, slips in some mordant political satire at the expense of the military-industrial complex, and authority figures of any kind come off pretty badly, but the satire never gets in the way of the gleeful black humour. The two leads, Bradford Dillman and Heather Menzies, are fairly pallid, but there are ripe cameos from such cult horror-movie icons as Kevin McCarthy, Dick Miller and Barbara Steele. Pino Donaggio's score impudently borrows aspects of John Williams' famous Jaws theme while never quite infringing copyright. The movie was successful enough to spawn a much-inferior sequel, Piranha II: The Spawning (1982), which marked the inauspicious directing debut of one James Cameron. On the DVD: Piranha on disc comes with just the theatrical trailer as an extra. The transfer is a respectable job, reproducing the original's full-screen ratio. --Philip Kemp

• The Howling | DVD | (09/10/2017) from £9.70   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  An instant werewolf classic, The Howling was directed by Joe Dante, a graduate of Roger Corman's school of low-budget ingenuity who had gained enough momentum with 1978's Piranha to rise to this bigger challenge. He brought along Piranha screenwriter John Sayles, too, and recruited makeup wizard Rob Bottin to create what was then the wildest on-screen transformation ever seen. With Gary Brandner's novel The Howling as a starting point, Sayles and Dante conceived a werewolf colony on the California coast, posing as a self-help haven led by a seemingly benevolent doctor (Patrick Macnee), and populated by a variety of "patients", from sexy, leather-clad sirens (Elisabeth Brooks) to an old coot (John Carradine) who's quite literally long in the tooth. When a TV reporter (Dee Wallace) arrives at the colony to recover from a recent trauma, the resident lycanthropes prepare for a howlin' good time. Dante handles it all with equal measures of humour, sex, gore, and horror, pulling out all the stops when the ravenous Eddie (Dante favourite Robert Picardo, later known as The Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager) transforms into a towering , bloodthirsty werewolf. (Bottin's mentor Rick Baker would soon raise the make-up ante with An American Werewolf in London.) As usual in Dante's movies (qv. Gremlins), in-jokes abound, from characters named after werewolf movie directors, amusing cameos (Corman, Sayles, Forrest J Ackerman), and hammy inserts of wolfish cartoons and Allen Ginsberg's "Howl". It's best appreciated now as a quintessential example of early-80s horror, with low-budget limitations evident throughout, but The Howling remains a giddy genre milestone. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Matinee | Blu Ray | (12/09/2016) from £14.99   |  Saving you £5.00 (33.36%)   |  RRP £19.99

  HALF MAN... HALF ANT... ALL TERROR! So says the advertising campaign for Mant!, the latest low-budget schlock-horror classic from cigar-chomping producer Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman, The Big Lebowski), who more than makes up for his films' lack of production values by festooning them with gimmicks that would turn even William Castle (The Tingler) green with envy. But the most potent gimmick of all is accidental: Woolsey schedules a sneak preview of Mant! in Key West, Florida, in October 1962, unaware that the Cuban missile crisis is about to flare up. Will the threat of genuine nuclear war distract the locals from the movie, or will they find it doubly terrifying? Directed by the legendary Joe Dante (The Burbs), this delightful film isn t just an affectionate love-letter to the sci-fi and horror films that he grew up with in the 1950s and 60s, it s also a witty and intelligent exploration of the way that the most successful genre films worked by preying on the very real fears of their audiences about everything from Soviet satellite launches to atomic mutation. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS: High definition digital transfer supplied by NBC Universal Lossless stereo audio Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing Paranoia in Ant Vision, a discussion with director Joe Dante about the making of the film Mant!, the full length version of the film-within-a-film Discussion with Joe Dante on the effects of Mant! Vintage making of featurette Rare on-set footage, sourced from Joe Dante s personal collection Original theatrical trailer Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Graham Humphreys

• Rock 'N' Roll High School | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £14.24   |  Saving you £-6.25 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Vince Lombardi High School keeps losing principals to nervous breakdowns because of the students' love of rock 'n' roll and their disregard of education. The putative leader of the students is Riff Randell who loves the music of the Ramones. A new principal the rock music hating Miss Evelyn Togar is brought in and promises to put an end to the music craze. When Miss Togar and a group of parents attempt to burn a pile of rock records the students take over the high school joined by the Ramones who are made honourary students. When the police are summoned and demand that the students evacuate the building they do so which leads to an explosive finale.

• The Hole Blu-ray 3D | Blu Ray | (06/06/2011) from £20.00   |  Saving you £3.99 (19.95%)   |  RRP £23.99

  From director Joe Dante comes a family-friendly adventure that explores the fears and secrets buried in the mind of kids. After moving into a new neighbourhood brothers Dane (Chris Massoglia - Vampire's Assistant) & Lucas (Nathan Gamble - Marley & Me) and their neighbour Julie (Haley Bennett - The Haunting of Molly Hartley) discover a bottomless hole in the basement of their home. They find that once the hole is exposed evil is unleashed. With strange shadows lurking around every corner and nightmares coming to life they are forced to come face to face with their darkest fears to put an end to the mystery of The Hole.

• Masters Of Horror Series 1 Volume 1 | DVD | (23/10/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Anchor Bay presents seven films from Showtime's much-anticipated Masters Of Horror series! Cigarette Burns (Dir. John Carpenter): Kirby Sweetman knows how to find rare film prints. However nothing could prepare him for the daunting search for 'Le Fin Absolue du Monde' a film allegedly shown only once and rumoured to have driven its audience into a muderous frenzy before the cinema mysteriously erupted in flames. Working for a shadowy patron Jimmy's increasingly obsessive investigation becomes nightmarish and deadly... Dreams In The Witch House (Dir. Stuart Gordon): Walter Gilman a college student studying interdimensional string theory rents a garret in a run-down building in the old New England town of Arkham. He is haunted by terrifying nightmares in which he is visited by a 17th-century witch and her familiar a rat with a human face. He begins to realize that these are not dreams at all and that diabolical forces are gathering to sacrifice his neighbour's infant. As Walter struggles to prevent this it becomes less clear if he will save the child or become its unwitting murderer himself. Incident On And Off A Mountain Road (Dir. Don Coscarelli): Ellen a seemingly defenceless young woman is pitted against Moonface a deformed and demented serial killer. As the story cuts back and forth in time we slowly discover that our heroine is not as helpless nor as innocent as she initially seems. Trained by her abusive husband Bruce to be a survivalist she has been instructed to use any and every available object as a weapon in a time of need. Chained to the floor of Moonface's horrific cabin with his unsavoury roommate (Angus Scrimm) Ellen must marshal all her survival skills as she races against the clock to escape a grisly fate... Chocolate (Dir. Mick Garris): Jamie is a newly divorced young man who creates artificial flavours for the food industry. Suddenly he inexplicably starts to experience brief and random sensory flashes from someone - and somewhere - unknown: sights sounds smells and touch. Learning that he's experiencing life through the senses of a mysterious woman he begins to fall in love with her - without ever having met her. Eventually he discovers a horrifying secret that binds him inexorably with the perfect woman in an erotic horrifying dance of death... Sick Girl (Dir. Lucky McKee): Angela Bettis stars as a shy entomologist whose drab life is changed by the simultaneous arrival of a large mysterious bug and a torrid affair with a sexy young woman. But when the bizarre insect chooses a shocking place to secretly feed Sapphic ecstasy turns to infection mutation and murder. Will these lesbian lovers let a venomous threesome tear them apart or is the most horrific metamorphosis of all yet to come? Deer Woman (Dir. John Landis): Detective Dwight Faraday is a burnt-out cop demoted to the 'weird calls' desk until a series of bizarre murders suddenly grabs his attention: Several men killed by massive blunt force trauma while in a state of sexual arousal all last seen in the company of a sexy Native American woman. But when it's discovered that these corpses were trampled into hamburger by what appear to be hooves Faraday must hunt a killer who may not be totally human. Will one cynical cop be caught like a deer in the headlights or has a horrifying seductress risen from legend to slaughter the horny? Homecoming (Dir. Joe Dante): It's a few weeks before the Presidential election and an unpopular war still rages overseas. But when the Republican Commander-In-Chief wishes that our dead troops could return to tell America how proud they were to serve their country veterans begin to rise from their flag-draped coffins....

• The Howling | DVD | (22/09/2008) from £29.99   |  Saving you £-17.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Severely shaken after a near-fatal encounter with a serial killer TV newscaster Karen White (Dee Wallace-Stone) takes some much-needed time off. Hoping to conquer her inner demons she heads for the 'Colony' a secluded retreat where her new neighbors are just a tad too eager to make her feel at home. Also there seems to be a bizarre link between her would-be attacker and this supposedly safe haven. And when after nights of being tormented by savage shrieks and unearthly cries Karen ventures into the forest to find answers she makes a terrifying discovery. Now she must fight not only for her life but for her very soul!

• Airplane/Top Secret/Police Squad/The Naked Gun/The Naked Gun 2 1/2/Naked Gun 33 1/3 | DVD | (03/11/2008) from £31.15   |  Saving you £-1.16 (N/A%)   |  RRP £29.99

  Titles Comprise: Airplane! Voted one of the 10 funniest movies ever made by the American Film Institute Airplane! is a masterpiece of off-the-wall comedy. Featuring Robert Hays as an ex-fighter pilot forced to take over the controls of an airliner when the flight crew succumbs to food poisoning; Julie Hagerty as his girlfriend/ stewardess/ co-pilot; and a cast of all-stars including Robert Stack Lloyd Bridges Peter Graves Leslie Nielsen Kareem Abdul-Jabbar...and more! Their hilarious high jinks spook airplane disaster flicks religious zealots television commercials romantic love...the list whirls by in rapid succession. And the story races from one moment of zany fun to the next! Top Secret: 'Top Secret!' pits American rock star Nick Rivers (Val Kilmer) against the dreaded East German High Command. It's a race against time as Nick teams up with Hillary Flammond (Lucy Gutteridge) to find her father before he can create the ultimate super weapon - the Polaris Mine. Along the way Top Secret! manages to do for war epics and Elvis films what Airplane! did to disaster movies! Police Squad: The satirical comedy Police Squad pits an ace detective and his captain (Leslie Nielsen & Alan North) against the criminal elements that befoul a big city. From the creators of Airplane!. Episodes Comprise: 1. A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise) 2. Ring of Fear (A Dangerous Assignment) 3. Butler Did It the (A Bird in the Hand) 4. Revenge and Remorse (The Guilty Alibi) 5. Rendezvous at Big Gulch (Terror in the Neighborhood) 6. Testimony of Evil (Dead Men Don't Laugh) The Naked Gun: Those screw-loose Airplane! creators have done it again! Leslie Nielsen stars as Police Squad's own granite-jawed rock-brained cop Frank Drebin who bumbles across a mind-control scheme to assassinate Queen Elizabeth. Priscilla Presley O.J. Simpson a stuffed beaver two baseball teams and an odd assortment of others join the wacko goings-on and blow the laugh-o-meter to smithereens. The Naked Gun 2 1/2 - The Smell Of Fear: Lt Frank Drebin (Leslie Nielsen) loves a mystery. Why are we here? Is there life after sex? Yes Drebin tackles the big issues - and the biggest of all is how to stop devious Quentin Hapsburg's (Robert Goulet) plan to destroy the environment! Returning with Nielsen in this hilarious Naked Gun sequel are Priscilla Presley as Jane the woman who can melt a cheese sandwich from 20 paces and George Kennedy as intrepid Captain Ed Hocken. The gang's all here. And so are the laughs. Like Drebin you're gonna love it. The Naked Gun 33 1/3 - The Final Insult: Oscar night. Who will win? Who will lose? And will someone please kick that numbskull offstage? Wait! That's no ordinary numbskull. That's Lt Frank Drebin crashing the ceremonies to stop a terrorist plot that could mean curtains for him - or will a simple window shade be enough? Yes back with a hilarious three-peat and a state-of-the art advance in sequel numbering are the filmmakers you love the returning stars you adore plus others getting Naked for the first time: Fred Ward Anna Nicole Smith and more folks you'd happily give your seat to on a crowded bus. The fun begins when...oops; we don't want to give away the gags. No. You'll have to pay for them. You'll be glad you did!

• The Howling | DVD | (18/10/2004) from £13.54   |  Saving you £6.45 (47.64%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Severely shaken after a near-fatal encounter with a serial killer TV newscaster Karen White (Dee Wallace-Stone) takes some much-needed time off. Hoping to conquer her inner demons she heads for the 'Colony' a secluded retreat where her new neighbors are just a tad too eager to make her feel at home. Also there seems to be a bizarre link between her would-be attacker and this supposedly safe haven. And when after nights of being tormented by savage shrieks and unearthly cries Kar

• 80s Classic Box Set | DVD | (18/09/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Goonies: A thrill-a-minute adventure film produced by Steven Spielberg! When brothers Mikey and Brand learn that greedy developers are forcing their family to move they and their friends decide to have one last precious adventure together. With the help of a treasure map they've found in the attic the group known as the Goonies go in search of buried gold hoping against hope that if they find it Mikey and Brand will succeed in keeping their home... (Dir. Richard Donner 1985) Police Academy: The call went out. The recruits came in. No longer would police cadets have to meet standards of height weight or other requirements. Brains were optional too. Can't spell IQ? Don't know the number 911? No matter. Police Academy grads are ready to uphold law and disorder! (Dir. Hugh Wilson 1984) Gremlins: Don't ever get it wet. Keep it away from bright light. And no matter how much it cries no matter how much it begs--never ever feed it after midnight. With these three instructions young Billy Peltzer takes possession of his cuddly new pet. Billy will get a whole lot more than he bargained for... (Dir. Joe Dante 1984)

• Gremlins | DVD | (06/10/2008) from £8.45   |  Saving you £-0.46 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Cute. Clever. Mischievous. Intelligent. Dangerous. Don't ever get it wet. Keep it away from bright light. And no matter how much it cries no matter how much it begs--never ever feed it after midnight. With these three instructions young Billy Peltzer takes possession of his cuddly new pet. Billy will get a whole lot more than he bargained for...

• Amazon Women On The Moon | DVD | (30/01/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Acclaimed director John Landis presents this madcap send-up of late-night TV low-budget sci-fi films and canned laughter-filled sitcoms packed with off-the-wall sketches that will have you in stitches! Centered around a television station which features a 1950s style sci-fi movie interspersed with a series of wild commercials wacky shorts and weird specials this lampoon of contemporary life and pop culture skewers some of the silliest spectacles ever created in the name of enterta

• The 'burbs | Blu Ray | (18/05/2015) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Tom Hanks stars in The 'Burbs, a sporadically funny extended sketch piece about a gaggle of suburban neighbours so preoccupied with mysteries taking place behind the closed doors of a newcomer that they go to extremes to look inside. The film is essentially a simple satire from director Joe Dante, for whom suburbia has been ripe territory for such comic-horror stories as Gremlins, Explorers, Matinee and Small Soldiers. Of all Dante's movies, The 'Burbs has the least story material to go around, and it depends heavily (and with modest success) on the comic powers of its cast--including Bruce Dern as a paranoid nut, Hanks as a Mr Normal type who loses perspective, and Rick Ducommun as Hanks' neurotic best friend. These appealing people hold one's attention, but by the end of the film, with nothing much having happened, even the cast can't mitigate an empty feeling. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

• Small Soldiers | DVD | (26/02/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Here's the pitch for Small Soldiers: "It's like Toy Story but these toys that come to life really kick butt!" That's essentially it for this breezy popcorn flick. In a very smart first 10 minutes, new toy-company owner Denis Leary tells his crew he wants toys "that play back". Hence the small soldiers land in Anytown, USA and the loner kid Alan (Gregory Smith) opens them up before they are supposed to be on the shelves. Those military-grade chips sure make them smart and give the toys plenty of pithy retorts to boot. There's plenty of violence and action, most of it fun enough. The vocal talents, including Tommy Lee Jones, Frank Langella and cast members of The Dirty Dozen are inspired characters, the humans less so. With Gremlins director Joe Dante at the helm, it plays like a sequel to that 80s fantasy. Amazing visual effects, of course. --Doug Thomas, Amazon.com