"Actor: David Munro"

• Scary Movie 3-Movie Collection | Blu Ray | (01/02/2021) from £14.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Get ready for 3 times the laughs, 3 times the terror and 3 times the stars with Scary Movie 1-3 on DVD! Rapid-fire jokes and funny bone-chilling suspense will keep you howling with laughter as Hollywood favourites take comedy to unprecedented levels in the first three instalments of this franchise spoof hit.

• Fallen | DVD | (23/10/1998) from £5.99   |  Saving you £8.00 (133.56%)   |  RRP £13.99

  Although it received mixed reactions from critics and audiences alike when released in 1998, this supernatural thriller benefits from a sustained atmosphere of anticipation and dread, and its combination of detective mystery and demonic mischief is handled with ample style and intelligence. Under the direction of Gregory Hoblit (who fared better with Primal Fear), Denzel Washington plays detective John Hobbes, who witnesses the gas-chamber execution of a serial killer (Elias Koteas). But when another series of murders begins, Hobbes suspects that the killer's evil spirit has survived and is possessing the bodies of others to do its evil bidding. Even Hobbes's trusted partner (John Goodman) thinks the detective is losing his grip on reality, but the dire warnings of a noted linguist (Embeth Davidtz) confirm Hobbes's far-out theory, and his case intensifies toward a fateful showdown. Although its idea is better than its execution, and the story's film noir ambitions are never fully accomplished, this slickly directed thriller has some genuinely effective moments in which evil forces are entwined into the fabric of everyday reality. Among the highlights is a memorable scene in which Detective Hobbes must track the killer as the evil spirit is transferred between many people via physical contact. Even if the film is ultimately less than the sum of its parts, it's an intriguing hybrid that resides in the same cinematic neighbourhood as Seven and The Silence of the Lambs with a cast that also includes Donald Sutherland and James Gandolfini. Included on the DVD is a full-length audio commentary by director Hoblit, screenwriter Nicholas Kazan and producer Charles Roven. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

• Sapphire And Steel - Assignments 1-3 | DVD | (12/08/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £40.99

  One of the oddest shows ever mounted for mainstream UK television, Sapphire & Steel was one of ITV's many short-lived attempts at grabbing the sci-fi cult status of the BBC's Doctor Who. Ex-Man From U.N.C.L.E. David McCallum and ex-Avenger Joanna Lumley play human-looking incarnations of the eponymous substances, mysterious investigators working at the behest of an apparent God of Order and zipping about TARDIS-like to cope with anomalies in the time-stream that manifest as apparent supernatural forces in remote English locales like an isolated farmhouse (Adventure One), a deserted rural railway station (Adventure Two) and a high-rise block of flats (Adventure Three). McCallum and Lumley play their "medium atomic weights" with blank style and a few touches of baffled humour, not to mention visual flair in the case of Lumley's blue fashions and occasional glowing eyes. But the lengthy serial format, strictly limited guest casts and claustrophobic confinement to studio floor sets tend to mean individual serials straggle on with a great deal of repetition, providing longeurs as six or eight-part stories seem to take forever to get moving and then resolve. Shot on video, with a few strange 1970s effects (evil follow-spots, floating pillows), this remains prime cult material, though it's hard to sit still for more than one episode at a time. It will take an extremely devoted fan to get through all three adventures in under six months. On the DVD: Sapphire & Steel on disc has to be reckoned a disappointment when compared with the wealth of extra material included on the Gerry Anderson or Doctor Who DVDs. This set stretches only to a few press releases and a TV Times article from the launch of the series that tries hard to build up a mystique about the show which it would take some years to actually acquire. There are basic bios of the two stars, and some unresonant stills. Image quality-wise, this looks much the same as previous VHS releases: shot on video, with only a few tiny film inserts for Adventure Three (on the roof of a London building), the series' transfer to DVD is plagued by artefacting of various kinds (some of which can just about be passed off as visual effects), but then again so were the original transmissions. The pristine look is especially unfortunate in exposing the extremely ordinary trickery as far less terrifying than the onscreen characters make them out to be. --Kim Newman

• Tightrope - The Complete Series | DVD | (03/09/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Timeslip star Spencer Banks, John Savident (Coronation Street) and future BAFTA-winning producer and director David Munro star in a tense thriller for young viewers which brilliantly captures the paranoia of the Cold War. Created and written by Victor Pemberton, whose previous writing credits included Dr Who and Ace of Wands, Tightrope was first screened in 1972. All thirteen half-hour episodes have been transferred from the available film elements specifically for this release. Martin Clifford lives in a quiet English village and is busy studying for his 'A' levels when he suddenly finds himself at the centre of a dangerous international espionage plot. Beneath the outwardly calm surface of Redlow lies an intricate network of spies and counterspies, with the focus of attention the USAF base nearby - soon to become the communications centre for top-secret NATO exercises. Martin, commissioned by British Intelligence to help uncover enemy agents in the village, finds his life balanced precariously on a tightrope; one false move on either side, and he could fall to his death.

• Sapphire And Steel - Assignments 4-6 | DVD | (07/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £40.99

  Starring Joanna Lumley and David McCallum Sapphire And Steel was one of the most enigmatic and acclaimed of all ITC-produced adventures. It continues to baffle and delight viewers twenty years later. Sapphire (Lumley) and Steel (McCallum) are the mysterious agents charged with protecting the Universe from the malevolent forces of Time with their uncanny powers. Assignment IV an evil amorphous entity uses photographs to move between time dimensions. It takes over a junkshop and entraps the inhabitants. A golden anniversary party where the guests are being killed off is the subject of Assignment V. Sapphire and Steel meet another element/detective Silver at an abandoned petrol station in Assignment VI and become embroiled in mystery.

• Starcrash | DVD | (19/05/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The entire galaxy is in peril and infamous space-smuggler Stella Star the greatest star pilot ever to command a vessel is its only hope. The evil Count Zartharn from the League of the Dark Worlds has constructed a weapon of limitless power capable of destroying anything in its path. Stella Star and her loyal crew must navigate the darkest corners of the solar system to find the Count's hideout and bring his reign of terror to an end. Originally released the year after Star Wars and with a Barbarella budget this piece of cult cinema is a sexy space classic and a must see for all sci-fi fans. With the addition of a John Barry soundtrack that makes this DVD a collectable classic.

• The New Avengers: The Complete Series - Episodes 1-26 | DVD | (02/09/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £59.99

  Sometimes dismissed as a pale descendant of a great original, The New Avengers deserves a second look and is perhaps best considered as a largely successful attempt to re-imagine its predecessor for 1970s audiences. Patrick McNee was never the most convincing of action heroes, and the decision to make his John Steed the supervisor and mentor of two younger agents was a sensible one--Steed's virtues are style, wisdom and fortitude rather than physical prowess. Gareth Hunt's Gambit has an unattractively smug side, but has also a louche charm. Joanna Lumley's Purdey is one of the most attractive heroines of genre television, astonishingly leggy and beautiful. Those who only know her later incarnation as Patsy in Absolutely Fabulous will understand now why such a fuss is made over her. The script team overlaps heavily with that of the original series; the new show has the same quirkiness, only occasionally varying it with a rather darker leCarrésque complexity or sudden outbreaks of Hammer Horror. If it lacks some of the sheer style of the original, that is a reflection of its period--the 1970s were less visually imaginative than the 60s. Tightly plotted, imaginatively cast with interesting guest stars, it is only with The Avengers that The New Avengers suffers by comparison. --Roz Kaveney

• Flesh for the Beast | DVD | (02/04/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £3.99

  At the turn of the century a notorious occultist named Alfred Fischer conjures up a brothel full of ravenous demons in a bizare ritual. Taking the form of beautiful women, the beasts desire a steady diet of fresh prey that only a human servant can provide. Almost a century after Fischer meets his mysterious end a team of para-psychologists investigate his manor for signs of restless spirits. In no time they are besieged by sexy demons, a mad man with a secret past, and a horde of slaughteri...