"Actor: Lou Antonio"

• Firestarter | DVD | (17/06/2008) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Stephen King wasn't exactly in peak form when he wrote Firestarter, so this 1984 movie adaptation was at a disadvantage even before the cameras rolled. There were so many King movies being made at the time the weaknesses of this one became even more apparent. In her first film role after her memorable appearance in E.T., Drew Barrymore stars as a little girl whose parents acquired strange mental powers after participating in a secret government experiment. From this genetic background she has developed the mysterious ability to set anything on fire at will, especially when she's angry. That makes her very interesting to government officials seeking to exploit her skill as a secret weapon. Her father tries to protect her by using his powers of mind-control, while George C. Scott plays an Indian who believes the girl must be destroyed. There is a routine climax involving a lot of impressive pyrotechnics, but none of this is grounded in a dramatically solid foundation, and none of the characters are developed enough for us to care about them. Director Mark L. Lester, who the following year made Commando with Schwarzenegger, keeps the pace cracking along, but nevertheless the movie gradually turns into a laughable thriller with no suspense whatsoever. It's a movie only a pyromaniac could love. --Jeff ShannonOn the DVD: This is a largely no-frills presentation, albeit with a decent anamorphic print. The only extras are the original theatrical trailer and a nicely presented menu. A fold-out booklet has informative liner notes and a reproduction of the film poster.

• Wages Of Fear | DVD | (21/01/2002) from £18.88   |  Saving you £1.11 (5.88%)   |  RRP £19.99

  In 1953, before any American studio exec used the phrase "high concept", Henri-George Clouzot's The Wages of Fear boasted a premise so literally explosive that audiences were excited before they got into the theatres. With an oil-fire burning out of control deep in the South American jungle, two lorryloads of highly unstable nitro-glycerin have to be driven through miles of unstable terrain littered with dangerous turns, crumbling planks, falling rocks and mediocre hardtop. One good jolt will vaporise truck, nitro, drivers and a substantial swathe of the countryside, so the company recruits desperate souls among the loser tramps who loiter around the nowhere town of Las Piedras, begging for any kind of work. On the road, Clouzot stages a string of unforgettable sequences: one stretch of badly paved track can only be crossed by driving at under six miles an hour or over 40; a mountain turn requires that the trucks back out onto a rickety, rotten wooden structure; a 50-ton boulder has fallen into the road, and one of the drivers calmly drains a litre of nitro into his thermos to blow it up, only remembering when the fuse is lit that this will rain pebbles all over the countryside and a few good hits on the cargo will set it off. This is perhaps as great a mix of action-adventure and contest as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and still a textbook example of sustained suspense. On the DVD: The print is in great shape, though the image is a little soft; the menu has a clever explosive aspect and uses the same vintage artwork as the sleeve cannily combined with a snippet. There are trailers for both Wages and Clozuot's other masterpiece, Les Diaboliques, as well as biographies of the principal cast, eight stills and three posters.--Kim Newman

• The Big Hit | DVD | (06/06/2005) from £5.75   |  Saving you £0.24 (4.17%)   |  RRP £5.99

  THE BIG HIT follows the professional and romantic misadventures of Mel (Mark Wahlberg), a beleaguered hitman

• Crimewave | DVD | (15/08/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Extermination is not just a business. It's a way of life. Directed by Sam Raimi and written by the brothers Coen: Joel and Ethan. Ernest Tread called the exterminators. He had a rat in his place of business - his partner. Unfortunately the exterminators dispatched the wrong rat!

• Knock Knock | DVD | (27/07/2009) from £9.49   |  Saving you £3.50 (26.90%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Answering The Door Will Never Be The Same A group of popular high school students stumble into the path of a vicious killer. The gruesome result leaves the town in horror as two detectives work to crack the case. Suspicions mount as the school recluse is seen wandering around in the dead of night and the remaining survivors fear the worst: a knock that no lock can withstand.

• The Arena | DVD | (01/09/2003) from £8.08   |  Saving you £-0.09 (N/A%)   |  RRP £7.99

  Female gladiators fight to the death. Inspired by the story of Spartacus follow the adventures of a bevy of slave girls who upon finding themselves thrust into the gladiator ring mount a vicious rebellion to fight their way to freedom.

• The Big Hit --Superbit | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  The criminal anarchy is hilarious when a foursome of full-time hit men looking to score some extra cash kidnap the boss' god-daughter. And when beleaguered wise guy Mel is set up to take the fall underworld antics and domestic absurdities collide for a working weekend no one will soon forget...

• Cool Hand Luke | DVD | (13/02/2006) from £8.45   |  Saving you £7.54 (89.23%)   |  RRP £15.99

  His crime: nonconformity. His sentence: the chain gang. Paul Newman plays one of his best-loved roles as Cool Hand Luke the loner who won't or can't conform to the arbitrary rules of his captivity. A cast of fine character actors including George Kennedy in his Academy Award-winning role of Dragline gives Newman solid support as fellow prisoners. And Strother Martin is the Captain who taunts Luke with the famous line '""What we've got here is...failure to communicate."" N