"Director: Michael Lantieri"

• Komodo | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-6.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  I think they're contesting our place in the food chain", quips an Imperilled teen at an especially low moment of Komodo, a regulation trapped-with-monsters straight-to-video quickie. There was a millennial blip of such nature-on-the-rampage horrors in the year 2000 and Komodo settles comfortably onto the shelf with King Cobra, Blood Surf, They Nest, Crocodile, Spiders and Octopus. If you've seen all of them, you'll probably want to see this too--but don't say we didn't warn you. Komodo familiarly packs a few no-name actors to an island supposedly off the shore of Carolina (actually somewhere in Australasia and has them menaced by CGI creatures, then fighting back and beating the beasts. Though the title gives away the nature of the menace, ex-effects technician-turned-director Michael Lantieri keeps the monsters off-screen and purportedly mysterious for half the running time. Teenage Patrick (Kevin Zegers) is traumatised by the deaths of parents (and his dog) and retreats into an amnesiac fugue, but his psychiatrist Victoria (Jill Hennessy) brings him back to the site of the tragedy to stir his memories. It turns out that the local evil oil company has always known that a bunch of giant, flesh-eating lizards were on the loose but kept quiet about it for nebulously nefarious purposes. Oates (Billy Burke), a rebellious company minion, hooks up with Patrick (who shows unexpected resourcefulness in whipping up lizard traps) and the shrink and they have a last-reel confrontation with the monsters that allow for some very distant echoes of Jurassic Park. The CGI and model work is seamless but the monsters have too little personality and, despite their voracious appetites, require all manner of contrivances to bring their victims within snapping distance. Nice bit at the end though with a gory if not dramatic finale. --Kim Newman

• Living Terror | DVD | (08/11/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £20.99

  This box set features three films where the beasts takes the power back! komodo: Emerald Island a tropical haven where fifteen-year-old Patrick spent many happy summer holidays. But now ever-expanding industrial plants have replaced the summer homes and in place of the friends with whom he played a hidden and unimaginable terror lurks. Within minutes Patrick's world collapses as his family are attacked by fearsome creatures leaving him orphaned and unable to describe the traumatic events he barely survived. Patrick's grandmother locates Victoria Juno a fiercely committed young doctor who believes she can help him. She decides that the best way to dislodge Patrick's memories is to return him to the scene of his terror - the island whose bloodthirsty inhabitants robbed him of the ones he loved. But the devilish terror that existed before has grown in number and ferocity. When Patrick Dr. Juno and their party arrive on the island they are met with deadly consequences. Dr. Juno must take on insurmountable odds in order to recover Patrick's psychological well-being and Patrick must come face to face with his greatest fear. But can any human overcome the predatory instinct of the Komodo Dragon. They Nest: Off the coast of Maine an African cargo vessel mysteriously explodes and crashes into the harbour. What no one knows is that the crew have already been dead for days... Dr. Ben Cahill (Thomas Calabro) arrives on Orrs Island to resolve some personal problems and receives a hostile reception. The locals do not like outsiders and in particular Jack Wald (John Savage) does his best to make Ben feel unwelcome. Soon bizarre and frightening deaths start to occur on the island. Each victim appears to have died by natural causes yet each has red insect bite-marks on their flesh. When Wald's dead body is discovered all fingers point to Ben. To clear his name Ben performs an autopsy to establish the true cause of Wald's death. He is horrified to discover insect cocoons filling the man's chest. A rare breed of African cockroaches has invaded the island and are using the insides of humans as breeding grounds. When a new hybrid of flying cockroaches evolve and begin to engulf the island the town's people must run for their lives to escape the hordes of bugs or face being eaten alive! Arachnid: A viral outbreak on a remote South Pacific island lures a secret expedition to investigate. The natives there are dying from a lethal cocktail of neurotoxins and the most likely cause is a venomous spider bite. The suspect - a previously unknown species of arachnid. Now a terrifying predator with a voracious appetite and a killer instinct is hunting ex-Navy pilot Lauren Mercer and her team of soldiers and scientists. To make matters worse the thing is multiplying at a ferocious rate. And when Mercers team finds the wreckage of a crashed spaceship it becomes clear that the extraterrestrial arachnid is more than just a new species of spider.