"Actor: Beverly Randolph"

• National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation | DVD | (24/11/2003) from £7.19   |  Saving you £-3.68 (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.51

  National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is the third instalment of the Griswold family saga and a significant improvement over their previous European Vacation. Disaster-prone dad (Chevy Chase) discovers just how dangerous the Christmas season really is as the Griswolds' old-fashioned holiday celebration turns out to be more "Bah! Humbug!" than Christmas cheer. Chase is right at home with the outrageous slapstick and often cheerfully tasteless humour, and John Hughes's script is stuffed full of classic Christmas movie references, but Randy Quaid practically steals the film as the unemployed relative with his malicious grin and mooching lifestyle. Not exactly a holiday classic and a bit spotty, this gag-filled comedy is just obnoxious enough for the Scrooge lurking inside everyone. And fear not, a happy ending awaits all. Watch for future star Juliette Lewis as Chase's teenage daughter. --Sean Axmaker

• The Return of the Living Dead (Collector's Edition) | Blu Ray | (18/10/2022) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

• Return Of The Living Dead | DVD | (21/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  A sudden storm brings a shower of polluted rain and in a downtown cemetery something stirs six feet under the earth. The bad news is the living dead are back. The worse news is that they haven't had a decent meal in years... and as anybody will tell you there's nothing as greedy as a ghoul with a taste for human brains. 'Return Of The Living Dead' is a special effects masterpiece and has its rotting tongue firmly in its ghoulish green cheek.

• The Return of the Living Dead | Blu Ray | (06/11/2013) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Return of the Living Dead is a parody-cum-sequel spin-off from George Romero's superior Night of the Living Dead films. A corpse-containing canister gets breached and releases an oily, loose-limbed, brain-eating zombie tatterdemalion and a gas that revives anything dead in the vicinity, even a bisected dog preserved as a vet's teaching specimen and a case of pinned butterflies. The dim-bulb leading characters--earnest Clu Gulager, goofy James Karen and Thom Matthews--burn up a mess of surplus living body parts, but the rains wash the ashes into the earth of a nearby cemetery and a whole crowd of brain-eating zombies claw their way out to terrorise a group of teens who sport the kind of 1985 fashions, hairdos, slang preferences and musical tastes that will never feature in a TV nostalgia programme. There are plenty of in-jokes at the expense of the Living Dead films (learning that shooting 'em in the brain doesn't work, the appalled Matthews gasps, "You mean the movie lied?"), and director Dan O'Bannon, the writer of Dark Star and Alien, hurries things along through some gruesome action and terror-by-zombie bits until the surprisingly cynical anti-government conclusion. It's not as wittily outrageous as Re-Animator or Braindead, but it has an amiable, drive-in-cum-home video grunge about it. Frequently naked exploitation regular Linnea Quigley makes an impression as the punkette zombie who goes on the rampage wearing nothing but leg-warmers and body make-up. The frill-free DVD is full-screen (boo hiss!) except for the titles, offers only the trailer and inadequate cast and crew notes as extras, but it looks okay. --Kim Newman

• It's In The Water | DVD | (08/07/2002) from £10.78   |  Saving you £9.21 (85.44%)   |  RRP £19.99

  We're not talking about monsters of the deep here. It's In the Water is set in the imaginary town of Azalea Springs, Texas, where the community is blighted by wealth and smugness and where the greatest crime is not to fit in--and that includes being gay. When the outrageous and fearless Spencer (John Hallum, camping it up) playfully lets on that there's something in the water supply that encourages homosexuality, the temperature of local gossip rises as fast as the sales of bottled water. Kelli Herd, in her directorial debut, aims to cast scorn on such phobic behaviour by sending up the straight guys and idealising the gays. Thus we have our central character, Alex (Keri Jo Chapman), whose life consists of lunches and charitable works, and who is married to Robert, a cold Action Man lookalike (and about as plastic in his acting skills). It's enough of a scandal when she gets enthusiastic about working in the local AIDS hospice, but when she has a lesbian fling with an old school friend, Grace (Teresa Garrett), who has returned to town, freshly divorced after discovering her true leanings, then even Alex's own mother--a complete nightmare of a woman--turns against her. The movie does have occasional witticisms, but it's too cliché-ridden and too sanitised (dying of AIDS was never this pretty) to do more than raise an occasional grim smile. Yes, there's a serious message underlying the film, but it would have needed more plot, stronger dialogue and less histrionic play-acting to give it true power. On the DVD: It's In the Water has only the most basic additional features: two trailers for similarly themed movies, but no subtitles or additional languages. The picture quality is bright and sharp, sparing us no detail in the Versace-inspired interiors and relentlessly garish mode of dress favoured by Azalea Springs inmates. --Harriet Smith

• Pretty Poison | DVD | (05/09/2005) from £14.40   |  Saving you £5.59 (28.00%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Did you ever see two kids like Dennis and Sue Ann? We think not... Dennis Pitt (Anthony Perkins) is released from prison following a sentence for his complicity in a suspicious death. Wandering through a small town he befriends and deceives straight-A student Sue Ann (Tuesday Weld). Convincing her that he is in fact a secret agent she decides to joins him. However is Sue Ann using Dennis' own weaknesses for her own evil ends?

• Return Of The Living Dead | DVD | (19/03/2001) from £25.00   |  Saving you £-10.01 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Return of the Living Dead is a parody-cum-sequel spin-off from George Romero's superior Night of the Living Dead films. A corpse-containing canister gets breached and releases an oily, loose-limbed, brain-eating zombie tatterdemalion and a gas that revives anything dead in the vicinity, even a bisected dog preserved as a vet's teaching specimen and a case of pinned butterflies. The dim-bulb leading characters--earnest Clu Gulager, goofy James Karen and Thom Matthews--burn up a mess of surplus living body parts, but the rains wash the ashes into the earth of a nearby cemetery and a whole crowd of brain-eating zombies claw their way out to terrorise a group of teens who sport the kind of 1985 fashions, hairdos, slang preferences and musical tastes that will never feature in a TV nostalgia programme. There are plenty of in-jokes at the expense of the Living Dead films (learning that shooting 'em in the brain doesn't work, the appalled Matthews gasps, "You mean the movie lied?"), and director Dan O'Bannon, the writer of Dark Star and Alien, hurries things along through some gruesome action and terror-by-zombie bits until the surprisingly cynical anti-government conclusion. It's not as wittily outrageous as Re-Animator or Braindead, but it has an amiable, drive-in-cum-home video grunge about it. Frequently naked exploitation regular Linnea Quigley makes an impression as the punkette zombie who goes on the rampage wearing nothing but leg-warmers and body make-up. The frill-free DVD is full-screen (boo hiss!) except for the titles, offers only the trailer and inadequate cast and crew notes as extras, but it looks okay. --Kim Newman