"Actor: Peter Butler"

• Manhunter | DVD | (01/10/2001) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Released to box-office indifference in 1986, Manhunter introduced Hannibal Lecter and established the rules of the modern race to find serial killer thriller five years before The Silence of the Lambs packed cinemas everywhere. This was Michael Mann's third feature, reuniting William L Petersen and Dennis Farina from his debut Thief (1981) as FBI agents hunting the killer dubbed "The Tooth Fairy". Petersen's Will Graham is the man who put Lecktor (as it is spelt here) behind bars, and as in Lambs consults with the Doctor, played with understated malevolence by Brian Cox. Manhunter is an exceptionally well-photographed film: Mann's regular cinematographer Dante Spinotti created sparse, elegantly framed, often mono-chromatically lit compositions which are essential to the shifting psychological moods. The performances are very good, and the typically 1980s, Vangelis-esque electronic score effectively sustains tension. Once the killer is introduced the scenes with Joan Allen have a genuinely unsettling, almost surreal quality. There is at least one serious plot flaw--how does "The Red Dragon" get his letter to Lecktor? Manhunter never packs the sheer excitement of Lambs, nevertheless, it is a powerful and compelling thriller which remains far superior to the third instalment in the series, Hannibal (2001). On the DVD: In addition to the trailer there is a revealing 10-minute conversation with Dante Spinotti in which he explains how he created the very distinctive look of Manhunter. Also included is a more general 17-minute retrospective "making-of" documentary. This is good but too short, the extras failing to live up to the wealth of material on the Lambs and Hannibal DVDs. The anamorphically enhanced 2.35:1 image is generally very good, being just a little soft in one or two early scenes. The sound is listed as Dolby Digital 5.1, but appears to replicate the main stereo signal in the rear channels. Audio is none the less powerful and clear, though lacks the sheer edge and atmospherics of some more recent thrillers. --Gary S Dalkin

• Pirates Of The Plain | DVD | (29/05/2006) from £4.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (100.60%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Never was a treasure so sought after... Pirates of the Plain centres around a nine-year-old boy (Seth Adkins) with an overactive imagination. Whether it's shoot-outs with the James Gang or laser battles with alien robots little Bobby's playmates seem real to him. It frightens his mother Dee Wallace Stone while Bobby's grandpa (Charles Napier) thinks it's just Bobby's way of coping with not having many friends and a father that left two years prior. At the same

• Preppies | DVD | (14/10/2002) from £13.27   |  Saving you £-7.28 (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A college boy decides to disrupt the studies of his cousin who stands to lose a 50 million dollar inheritance if he fails his exams with a weekend of sex booze and rock n' roll to claim the money for himself!

• Tadpole | DVD | (22/03/2004) from £9.98   |  Saving you £5.01 (50.20%)   |  RRP £14.99

  Everyone tells 15-year-old Oscar Grubman he should date girls his own age. But with his eye on his stepmother Eve, Oscar respectfully disagrees.