"Actor: Luis Barboo"

• Conan the Barbarian | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £8.09   |  Saving you £-2.10 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  The film that launched Arnold Schwarzenegger's international career, Conan the Barbarian is still regarded by many as his finest hour. Limited to a mere handful of lines and expertly directed to play up the Nietzschean strength of the character by John Milius, the Austrian Oak has never looked more suited to a role, his muscle flexing and sword twirling apparently effortless. The extraordinarily finely detailed production design ensures that the barren Spanish countryside perfectly suits the Hyborean-era backdrop envisioned by author Robert E Howard. Whether dressed in rags or riches, Schwarzenegger and companions Subotai (Gerry Lopez) and Valeria (Sandahl Bergman) look believably born to their surroundings. Backing their own very fine performances are brilliant supporting roles from James Earl Jones as serpentine baddie Thulsa Doom and Max Von Sydow as doomed King Osric. Plot-wise the film is simply the transformation of a wild barbarian into a worldly-wise king who, via a quest for revenge, finally learns the riddle of steel. The script is highly regarded for its dazzling set-pieces (the opening village raid, the orgy of body parts) and quotable dialogue ("They shall all drown in lakes of blood"), and it comes complete with an anti-peace movement reactionary subtext for anyone who cares to look close enough. One other element deserving mention is the extraordinary score by Basil Poledouris, which inspires the film with a sense of operatic grandeur. On the DVD: Conan the Barbarian appears as a suitably mythic special edition DVD. Sadly the magnificent score can only be heard in a mono mix, but the very fine picture is presented in 2.35:1. The extras package is phenomenal, too. Several deleted scenes have been re-edited into the film, but are available to view independently as well. There's a quick split-screen special effects feature showing how the ghostly spirits were added to Conan's resurrection. "The Conan Archives" is an 11-minute slide show of drawings, costumes and advertising. Best of all is the fantastic 53-minute "Conan Unchained" documentary interviewing every conceivable contributor who all reminisce with great fondness. It's slightly better seeing Schwarzenegger and Milius than hearing them talk in their commentary, which inevitably re-tells many of the same anecdotes in between puffs of Arnie's stogies. --Paul Tonks

• The Sergio Martino Collection | Blu Ray | (02/08/2021) from £50.98   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  One of Italian cinema's most celebrated and prolific filmmakers, Sergio Martino worked across a range of genres, but is arguably best known for his giallo thrillers. This collection brings together three of his finest. In The Case of the Scorpion's Tail, recently widowed Lisa Baumer is summoned to Athens to collect her husband's generous life insurance policy, but soon discovers others are willing to kill to get their hands on it. In the Edgar Allan Poe-inspired Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, abrasive drunk Oliviero amuses himself by holding drunken orgies and abusing his long-suffering wife but when a series of grisly murders shakes the local community, Oliviero finds himself in the frame. Finally, The Suspicious Death of a Minor combines giallo and crime thriller tropes as undercover cop Paolo pursues the Milanese criminal outfit responsible for the brutal murder of an underage prostitute, but finds himself up against a killer-for-hire who's bumping off witnesses before they have a chance to talk. Featuring sensational casts of genre stalwarts, including Edwige Fenech, George Hilton, Anita Strindberg and Luigi Pistilli, with scripts by giallo master Ernesto Gastaldi and sensuous scores by maestro Bruno Nicolai, this is an essential collection for any Italian cult cinema fan. Special Features: Three films from Sergio Martino: The Case of the Scorpion's Tail, Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, and The Suspicious Death of a Minor, restored in 2K from the original camera negative High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentation for all films Original uncompressed mono Italian and English audio tracks Optional English subtitles for Italian audio and English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing for English audio Newly commissioned artwork by Marc Schoenbach THE CASE OF THE SCORPION'S TAIL: Audio commentary with writer Ernesto Gastaldi, moderated by filmmaker Federico Caddeo (in Italian with English subtitles) Under the Sign of the Scorpion an interview with star George Hilton The Scorpion Tales an interview with director Sergio Martino Jet Set Giallo an analysis Sergio Martino's films by Mikel J. Koven, author of La Dolce Morte: Vernacular Cinema and the Italian Giallo Film The Case of the Screenwriter Auteur a video essay by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films Theatrical trailer Image gallery Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY: Through the Keyhole an interview with director Sergio Martino Unveiling the Vice making-of retrospective featuring interviews with Martino, star Edwige Fenech and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi Dolls of Flesh and Blood: The Gialli of Sergio Martino a visual essay by Michael Mackenzie exploring the director's unique contributions to the giallo genre The Strange Vices of Ms. Fenech film historian Justin Harries on the Your Vice actress' prolific career Eli Roth on Your Vice and the genius of Martino Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Matthew Griffin THE SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF A MINOR: Audio commentary by Troy Howarth, author of So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films Violent Milan an interview with co-writer/director Sergio Martino Reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Chris Malbon

• Female Vampire | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Eurotrash sex/horror auteur Jesus Franco's Female Vampire delivers nudity, drinking of human body fluids, plentiful zoom shots, languorous music, a vestigial storyline and the odd moment of surrealism (a flapping bat car ornament). It opens with a soulful-eyed brunette (Lina Romay) striding through misty woods wearing only thigh-boots, a leather belt and a black cloak, then chancing across a breeder of tropical birds upon whom she performs an act of oral sex that winds up painfully and fatally for the poor chump. One of Franco's better films, this still has an extremely leisurely pace which means that the story drifts dreamlike (or tediously, depending on your point of view) between protracted but unappealing sexual encounters as a smitten fellow with the requisite 70s porno moustache (Jack Taylor), a vampire-hating doctor (director Franco) and a blind coroner pursue the gloomy Countess for their own reasons. The vampire is mute but has an Anne Rice-style whining voice-over, and the dubbing means that everyone else seems equally dissociated from the words that fail to approximate their lip movements. Fans of Lina's frustrated naked writhings get to see her do the thing on top of several men and women, a bed, a tree and in a bath of blood. To Franco-philes, it's a masterpiece; to everyone else, wearisome tat. On the DVD: Female Vampire on disc comes with a nice widescreen transfer of a print that goes on longer than any previous UK release (though it runs 94 mins, not the 101 listed on the cover); an alternate opening sequence (with the title The Bare Breasted Countess); a fairly complete list of Franco credits; a French trailer (for La Comtesse aux Seins Nus); and four brief alternate scenes from a version of the film with less explicit sex but more blood (i.e., necks are bitten but not private parts). --Kim Newman

• The Light At The Edge Of The World | DVD | (09/08/2004) from £39.99   |  Saving you £-30.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  A pirate takes over a lighthouse near Cape Horn intent on luring ships to their destruction. A beautiful woman used as bait by the pirate traps a sole survivor who is attempting to foil the actions of this cunning pirate.

• Jess Franco Double Bill - Vol. 1 - Dracula Vs Frankenstein / Curse Of Frankenstein | DVD | (24/07/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Dracula Prisoner Of Frankenstein (1972): Yesterday they were cold and dead. Today they're hot and bothered! When Dracula despatches another innocent victim Dr. Seward decides it's time to eradicate the evil count once and for all. However when Dr Frankenstein reanimates the lifeless Count in an attempt to create the perfect master race it's a three way battle between the man the vampire and the monster. Plus a werewolf thrown in for good measure! Curse Of Frankenstein

• The Demons | DVD | (20/06/2011) from £18.88   |  Saving you £-3.89 (N/A%)   |  RRP £14.99

  The prolific and manic Jess Franco has directed well over 200 films. Some are dire the majority functional and a few are absolute classics of exploitation cinema. The Demons Franco's shameless cash in on Ken Russell's the Devils is a true Franco masterpiece featuring everything from torture lesbian sex and demonic possession. The film centres on a witch who is burned at the stake by the inquisition but who before the flames consume her manages to curse the principal witchfinder and his minions with dire results. What follows is a catalogue of depravity and sexual violence on a truly orgiastic scale while Franco's camera gleefully captures every perverse moment and gratuitous exposure of female flesh!

• Jess Franco Double Bill - Vol. 2 - Devil's Island Lovers / Night Of The Assassin | DVD | (21/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Devil's Island Lovers (1974): A love-sick man is determined to woo his deceased wife's sister and get his hands on the family fortune... Night Of The Assassins (1976): A castle's residents are stalked by a masked killer who is intent on seeing each is on the receiving end of an exceedingly grisly death...