"Actor: Cynthia Garris"

• Sleepwalkers | DVD | (09/10/2003) from £7.19   |  Saving you £-1.20 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is about a half-human, half-cat race of shape shifters called, for no apparent reason, sleepwalkers. Hunky Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his incestuous mother (Alice Krige) are sleepwalkers, and they've come to the small town of Travis, Indiana, where they've somehow acquired a nice house and false identities. They need virgin souls to survive and have fixated on local beauty Tanya (Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks). That's about it for the story--from then on it's a series of chase scenes full of badly done gore. King must have been sleepwalking himself when he wrote this screenplay: the dialogue is terrible, the characters are cardboard, and the plotting is clumsy. Combine that with mediocre acting, thoughtless direction, slapdash editing, and cheesy special effects, and you have Sleepwalkers. Amick comes off reasonably well and there are cameos by King, Clive Barker, and horror directors John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But really, if you're interested in were-cats, see the original Cat People, starring Simone Simon; it's both sexier and scarier. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• Stephen King's The Shining | DVD | (10/02/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Stephen King's The Shining is a new adaptation from the author himself, made for American television, that bears very little resemblance to the 1980 Stanley Kubrick version. Which is not surprising since Kubrick practically threw out most of King's novel and presented his own version of the story. Here King redresses the balance in a mini-series that follows his original almost to the letter, and manages to be effectively creepy despite the budget and censorship limitations of the TV format. Stephen Weber takes over the role of Jack Torrance, the caretaker who slowly descends into madness in the haunted Overlook Hotel. His performance is as far from Jack Nicholson as you could get, with his insanity building slowly and menacingly rather than being virtually mad from the get-go. Rebecca de Mornay is superb as Wendy Torrance, struggling to hold her fragile family together amid the spooky goings on. Young Courtlan Mead plays Danny, whose unique gifts give the story its title, as one of those infuriating TV brats who overacts left right and centre. Fortunately, there are enough creepy moments and a fair few frights to hold the whole thing together: the woman in the bathtub scene being a stand out shocker. Sure, there is nothing quite like Nicholson's "Here's Johnny!" moment, but this is the story King wanted to tell and it still shines brighter than most of the other recent screen adaptations of his work. On the DVD: Stephen King's The Shining is a nicely packaged set, with the film spread over two discs complete with a commentary featuring Stephen King himself, instantly making this set a must-have for his fans. There are also several deleted scenes which add some interest to parts of the movie. The transfer is good, considering its TV origins, and the crisp sound captures every spooky moment on this well-thought-out and presented set. --Jonathan Weir

• Stephen King's Sleepwalkers | DVD | (23/10/2000) from £22.98   |  Saving you £-16.99 (-283.60%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Stephen King's Sleepwalkers is about a half-human, half-cat race of shape shifters called, for no apparent reason, sleepwalkers. Hunky Charles Brady (Brian Krause) and his incestuous mother (Alice Krige) are sleepwalkers, and they've come to the small town of Travis, Indiana, where they've somehow acquired a nice house and false identities. They need virgin souls to survive and have fixated on local beauty Tanya (Madchen Amick from Twin Peaks). That's about it for the story--from then on it's a series of chase scenes full of badly done gore. King must have been sleepwalking himself when he wrote this screenplay: the dialogue is terrible, the characters are cardboard, and the plotting is clumsy. Combine that with mediocre acting, thoughtless direction, slapdash editing, and cheesy special effects, and you have Sleepwalkers. Amick comes off reasonably well and there are cameos by King, Clive Barker, and horror directors John Landis (An American Werewolf in London), Joe Dante (Gremlins), and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre). But really, if you're interested in were-cats, see the original Cat People, starring Simone Simon; it's both sexier and scarier. --Bret Fetzer, Amazon.com

• Serpent And The Rainbow, The / John Carpenter's Ghosts Of Mars / Stephen King's Sleepwalkers | DVD | (06/09/2004) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Sleepwalkers: Charles Brady and his mother Mary aren't your average American family. They are Sleepwalkers nomadic shape-shifting creatures with human and feline origins. Vulnerable only to the scratch of a cat they thrive on the life-force of virginal flesh... And now's the time to eat... Master of the unimaginable Stephen King creates a new force in fear as high school student Tanya Robertson takes on the terror of the blood-sucking creatures as they unleash an horrific campaign of murder and mutilation in their deadly quest for flesh. Ghosts Of Mars: It's their planet: we are the aliens... 200 years in the future a Martian police unit is dispatched to transport a dangerous prisoner from a mining outpost back to justice. But when the team arrives they find the town deserted and some of the inhabitants possessed by the former inhabitants of the planet. Serpent And The Rainbow: Wes Craven directs this terrifying story of one man's nightmarish journey into the eerie and deadly world of voodoo. A Harvard anthropologist is sent to Haiti to retrieve a strange powder that is said to have the power to bring human beings back from the dead. In his quest to find the miracle drug the cynical scientist enters the rarely seen netherworld of walking zombies blood rites and ancient curses. Based on the true life experiences of Wade Davis and filmed on location in Haiti it's a frightening excursion into black magic and the supernatural.