"Actor: Joel Spence"

• The Shyamalan Collection: Signs, Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense | DVD | (31/03/2003) from £34.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £34.99

  M Night Shyamalan's breakout third feature, The Sixth Sense sets itself up as a thriller poised on the brink of delivering monstrous scares, but gradually evolves into more of a psychological drama with supernatural undertones. The bare bones of the story are basic enough, but the moody atmosphere created by Shyamalan and cinematographer Tak Fujimoto made this one of the creepiest pictures of 1999, forsaking excessive gore for a sinisterly simple feeling of chilly otherworldliness. Even if you figure out the film's surprise ending, it packs an amazingly emotional wallop when it comes, and will have you racing to watch the movie again with a new perspective. --Mark Englehart M Night Shyamalan reunites with Bruce Willis in Unbreakable for another story of everyday folk baffled by the supernatural (or at least unknown-to-science). This time around, Willis has paranormal, possibly superhuman abilities, and a superbly un-typecast Samuel L Jackson is the investigator who digs into someone else's strange life to prompt startling revelations about his own. Throughout, the film refers to comic-book imagery, while the lectures on artwork and symbolism feed back into the plot. The last act offers a terrific suspense-thriller scene, which (like the similar family-saving at the end of The Sixth Sense) is a self-contained sub-plot that slingshots a twist ending that may have been obvious all along. Some viewers may find the stately solemnity with which Shyamalan approaches a subject usually treated with colourful silliness off-putting, but Unbreakable wins points for not playing safe and proves that both Willis and Jackson, too often cast in lazy blockbusters, have the acting chops to enter the heart of darkness. --Kim Newman After tackling ghosts and superheroes, M Night Shyamalan brings his distinctive, oblique approach to aliens in Signs. With Mel Gibson replacing Bruce Willis as the traditional Shyamalan hero--a family man traumatised by loss--and leaving urban Philadelphia for the Pennsylvania sticks, the film starts with crop circles showing up on the property Gibson shares with his ex-ballplayer brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and his two troubled pre-teen kids. Though the world outside is undergoing a crisis of Independence Day-sized proportions, Shyamalan limits the focus to this family, who retreat into their cellar when "intruders" arrive from lights in the sky and set out to "harvest" them. The tone is less certain than the earlier films--some of the laughs seem unintentional and Gibson's performance isn't quite on a level with Willis's commitment--but Shyamalan still directs the suspense and shock dramas better than anyone else. --Kim Newman

• The Invisible Man, Series 1 (Box Set 2) | DVD | (07/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £39.99

  The Invisible Man continued its first year in increasingly tense and cryptic fashion. Anti-hero Darien has to keep up his spying gig in order to be fed an antidote to the side effects of the invisibility gland. Unfortunately it isn't working. The clock is ticking all the way to a tense finale, where the Quicksilver insanity threatens to consume him whole. There's lots of fun with the format on the way, of course. Darien encounters a ghost, a sperm thief and a hitman who likes to blind his witnesses. Some grander political backdrop comes to the fore as well, with the Chinese government seeking surreptitiously to obtain the gland. All the while there's a growing sense that the Agency has troubles of its own. In an unprecedented bit of audience participation, viewers were allowed to vote for the resolution of a story entitled "Money for Nothing". Fans went for the more interesting option, thankfully, and so an invisible bank raid pays off nicely for everyone. Creating constant conflict throughout the year is the lurking presence of arch-enemy Arnaud. The immediate resolution of that conflict is one of several surprise twists that singled out the show as more than standard TV SF fare. Not even a so-so cameo from Star Trek's Wil Wheaton could spoil the fun. On the DVD: The Invisible Man's second box set features even more extras than the first DVD set. Two cast commentaries are frequently comic, though with a constant sense of disappointment the show didn't go further than two series. There are lengthy interviews with the cast, too. But of real interest to fans will be alternate footage previously unseen in the UK. Some FX shots and script pages round out the package. --Paul Tonks

• Hamal_18 | DVD | (25/10/2010) from £6.98   |  Saving you £6.01 (46.30%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Steven is a troubled police detective a man on the edge since the rape and murder of his 14-year-old daughter by an internet predator. Determined to avenge her death and find the man responsible Steven assumes the identity of his dead daughter to lure the killer out into the open. Whilst his colleagues admire his zeal and dedication few realise that Steven is spiralling downwards into a dark world of inconsolable grief and bloody revenge. When one of his fellow detectives is kidnapped by his daughter's killer Steven must put his personal vendetta to one side but when your feelings run this deep the line between right and wrong is never clear.

• Still Filthy | Blu Ray | (15/02/2010) from £36.43   |  Saving you £-9.44 (-35.00%)   |  RRP £26.99

  In 1988 with the release of Filthy Habits Billabong changed the surf video forever. Raw and unapologetic Filthy Habits presented the untouchable Billabong team in a revolutionary formula that simply featured kick-ass surfing cut tightly to kick-ass music. Twenty-one years later... Occys still ripping bands like T.S.O.L. and Social Distortion are still rockin' hard and Billabong hasn't changed their filthy habits one bit... the result? Still Filthy is born! Sit back and enjoy this historic ride into the future as the Billabong team takes you up over down under and around the world.