Italian horror maestro Dario Argento made his name by turning homicide into modern art with a cinematic flourish, but with Phenomena he takes his stylish mayhem in new directions. The film opens with the dreamy grace of a fairy tale: a young girl wandering the green meadows of Switzerland and discovering a gingerbread house, wherein lives a monster more modern than mythic, a psychopathic maniac who plunges the picture into a lush nightmare. Jennifer (Jennifer Connelly in her first starring role), a gifted young girl at a Swiss school, has a psychic link to the insect world and develops a connection with the killer through midnight sleepwalks. With the help of a lonely, wheelchair-bound entomologist (genre stalwart Donald Pleasence, who inflects his sonorous tenor with a gentle Scottish burr) she turns telekinetic detective, which only draws her closer to the killer's lair. The densely plotted story becomes muddled at times (this is the busiest film in Argento's oeuvre) but the lyrical cinematography and gorgeous nocturnal imagery--dreamy sleepwalks, nightmarish murders, hideous horrors that emerge in the dark of night--take on a poetic elegance not seen in his previous work, providing the tale with a kind of dream logic. This is a slasher film reborn as an exquisitely grim fantasy: Jennifer in Argentoland. --Sean Axmaker
Anzio (1968): Robert Mitchum Peter Falk and Arthur Kennedy star in the rivetting war drama Anzio a vivid portrait of one of the bloodiest WWII battles ever fought. After landing with Allied troops at Anzio Italy in 1944 war correspondent Dick Ennis (Mitchum) and buddy Corporal Rabinoff (Falk) tell Anzio commander General Lesley (Kennedy) that the road to Rome is wide open. But instead of heading to Rome Lesley attempts to build a coastal stronghold only to discover that the Germans have outflanked them by enclosing the Anzio beachhead. Four months and over 30 000 casualties later the Allied forces smash through the German lines and victoriously march to Rome. Directed by Edward Dmytryk Anzio is a powerful film and a symbol of heroic tenacity. Cockleshell Heroes (1955): In World War II Royal Marine Major Stringer (Jose Ferrer) and Captain Thompson (Trevor Howard) chose volunteers for an unknown job. They trained the volunteers intensively in top secrecy for more than a year and then embarked with them on the most dangerous mission of the war - the canoe invasion of an enemy-held French port for the purpose of blowing up the giant battleships. The ten ""canoe commandoes"" were carried to their jump-off point by submarine despite a depth-charge attack. Facing fantastic hazards they paddled 70 miles through enemy waters to complete their mission. But only two survivors would return... Night Of The Generals (1967): Five years after their triumphant teaming in Lawrence of Arabia Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif reunited for this powerful World War II thriller about a Nazi General who becomes a serial killer. When a Polish prostitute is brutally murdered in Nazi-occupied Warsaw her killer is identified as a German General. The investigator Major Grau (Sharif) narrows the suspects to three Generals in the German high command: the heroic Tanz (O'Toole) the cynical Kahlenberge (Donald Pleasence) and the weak Von Seidlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray). For years the crime remains unsolved until the killer strikes again bringing this mesmerising mystery to its unforgettable finish. Also starring Christopher Plummer Tom Courtney Philippe Noiret and Joanna Pettet The Night Of The Generals is an all-star thriller from a master of the form.
Boxset of four classic films from the 1960s. 'No Love for Johnnie' (1961) stars Peter Finch as an MP whose thirst for greater power leads him to political intrigue. Johnnie Byrne (Finch) aspires to the big time and his hopes are raised when his party triumphs in a general election. As Johnnie is overlooked for a role on the front benches his personal life also hangs in the balance as his wife (Rosalie Crutchley) decides to leave him. When Johnny is approached by a couple of fellow backbenchers for help in a scheme that may destabilise the government but advance their careers, Johnny is faced with a difficult decision. 'The Beauty Jungle' (1964) is a British comedy drama in which a young woman finds a new career as a beauty queen. Attractive typist Shirley Freeman (Janette Scott) is encouraged by newspaper journalist Don Mackenzie (Ian Hendry) to enter a beauty pageant while on holiday. After winning she decides to quit her job and become a full time contestant, proving to be very successful. However, her success won't last forever... 'The High Bright Sun' (1964) is set in Cyprus in 1957 against the backdrop of Cyprus's determined struggle for independence from British rule. Dirk Bogarde stars as a British Intelligence Officer whose sense of duty imperils the life of the woman he loves. 'Flame in the Streets' (1961) is a hard-hitting melodrama about racial tensions in early 1960s England starring John Mills and Sylvia Sims. Jacko Palmer (Mills) is a union man who has to confront the prejudices of his members when a black foreman (Earl Cameron) is appointed and the members threaten to strike. When he discovers that his daughter (Sims) wants to marry Jamaican schoolteacher Peter Lincoln (Johnny Sekka) however, Jacko must confront his own prejudices and become a bigger man.
John Carpenter's malevolent monster Michael Myers escapes from years of comatose incarceration whilst being transported from a maximum security institution. Myers carves his way to Haddonfield for Halloween - the original setting of Michael's massacre, leaving a bloody trail of carnage and corpses. Only one man knows of the true horrors of this mad man - Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence) who also returns to Haddonfield to do battle once again with the devil incarnate. But Dr. Loomis knows only t...
You only live twiceOnce when you are bornand once when you look death in the face. The fifth film in the Bond series You Only Live Twice unveils the sinister visage of Ernst Stavro Blofeld for the very first time! The film is also memorable for its incredible 400 000 set of Blofeld's Volcano operational base complete with the rocket laucher helicopter landing pad monorail and massive shutter. Q's invention 'Little Nellie' - a one man miniature helicopter - also makes a big impact. An American space mission is interrupted when one of their capsules is literally swallowed up by what they suspect is a Russian spaceship. The Americans threaten to retaliate but the British think otherwise. Everything depends on Bond as he goes undercover in Japan and discovers that Blofeld is the creator of these interceptor rockets...
The Caretaker was the play that made Harold Pinter's name when it was first performed at the Arts Theatre London in 1960 and it remains probably his most famous. Two years later Clive Donner's film version began shooting after producer Michael Birkett had raised the finance from such figures as Noel Coward Richard Burton Elizabeth Taylor Peter Sellers Peter Hall and Leslie Caron - all passionate admirers of the play. For the film two of the cast of the original production
In the spy-crazed film world of the 1960s, Len Deighton's antihero Harry Palmer burst onto the scene as an antidote to the James Bond films. Here was a British spy who had a working-class accent and horn-rimmed glasses and above all really didn't want to be a spy in the first place. As portrayed by Michael Caine, Palmer was the perfect antithesis to Sean Connery's 007. Unlike that of his globetrotting spy cousin, Palmer's beat is cold, rainy, dreary London, where he spends his days and nights in unheated flats spying on subversives. He does charm one lady, but she's no Pussy Galore, just a civil servant he works with, sent to keep an eye on him. Eventually he's assigned to get to the bottom of the kidnapping and subsequent "brain draining" of a nuclear physicist, all the while being reminded by his superiors that it's this or prison. Things begin to get pretty hairy for Harry. Produced by Harry Saltzman in his spare time between Bond movies, the film also features a haunting score by another Bond veteran, composer John Barry. --Kristian St. Clair, Amazon.com
Following her mysterious behaviour at the conclusion of Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, young Jamie (Danielle Harris) is committed to the psychiatric care of Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence). Meanwhile, Michael Myers is presumed dead following a shoot-out with the Haddonfield Police and a fatal fall down a mineshaft entrance. A well-meaning derelict nurses Michael back to health, and one year later he is back to kill again! Jamie finds herself the object of Michael's murderous ...
In the nightmarish last days of the Third Reich, a psychotic Nazi scientist (Robert Vaughn) escapes to the impenetrable jungles of the Amazon. Years later, a mysterious incurable disease breaks out among the natives and adventurer John Hamilton (Michael Dudikoff) is hired to lead investigators on a search for the cause. Braving bloodthirsty rives pirates, hostile native tribes and headhunting cannibals, Hamilton, guides a group of explorers up the deadly Rio del Morte to the fabulous lost Inca city.
Verena Steynton (Judy Parfitt) is holding a party for her daughter. All the aristocratic families of Strathcroy in the Scottish Highlands are attending with all their guilty secrets. Lord Archie Balmerino (Edward Fox) a crippled war veteran and his long suffering wife will be there. Edmund Aird (Michael York) a wealthy entrepreneur and his beautiful American wife have been invited. And Pandora (Jacqueline Bisset) Archie's exotic and mysterious sister who disappeared from the village twenty years ago is returning under a cloud of suspicion. Only Edmund and her brother know the secret of her flight from home. But the rumours are flying and the local families feel that Pandora's return can only bring bad luck. When a lifeless body is found in the loch the tension rises. Why has Pandora come back after so long? What are her motives? And has her return already had deadly consequences?
Detective Inspector Martineau (Baker) is tough hard working and one of Manchester's top policeman. So when he hears of a jailbreak involving ruthless criminal and jewel thief Don Starling (John Crawford) whom he helped put away he is convinced Starling will come back to Manchester for one last heist. But when a simple robbery turns to murder Martineau is on the case determined to catch him whatever the cost...
Escape To Witch Mountain (Dir. John Hough 1975): Two young orphans with supernatural powers are adopted by a ruthless millionaire who plans to harness use their abilities for his own selfish purposes... Return From Witch Mountain (Dir. John Hough 1978): An entire city teeters on the brink of nuclear disaster when greedy criminals manipulate a young boy's supernatural powers for their own devious gain.
A devastating story of war and a generation destroyed. In 1914 a group of German schoolboys idealistic and inflamed with youthful patriotism set off to fight in the glorious war. During their brutal basic training disenchantment begins. Then boarding a train for the front they see the wounded being rushed back to the hospitals and they begin to grasp the grim reality of war. Amongst them is Paul Baumer (Richard Thomas) whose preconceptions are shattered upon witnessing the horror of life at the front. This is the second film version (the first was made in 1930) of Erich Maria Remarque's classic novel.
Irwin Allen's visually impressive but scientifically silly Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea updates 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as the world's most advanced experimental submarine manoeuvres under the North Pole while the Van Allen radiation belt catches fire, giving the concept "global warming" an entirely new dimension. As the Earth broils in temperatures approaching 170 degrees F, Walter Pidgeon's maniacally driven Admiral Nelson hijacks the Seaview sub and plays tag with the world's combined naval forces on a race to the South Pacific, where he plans to extinguish the interstellar fire with a well-placed nuclear missile. But first he has to fight a mutinous crew, an alarmingly effective saboteur, not one but two giant squid attacks and a host of design flaws that nearly cripple the mission (note to Nelson: think backup generators). Barbara Eden shimmies to Frankie Avalon's trumpet solos in the most form-fitting naval uniform you've ever seen; fish-loving Peter Lorre plays in the shark tank; gloomy religious fanatic Michael Ansara preaches Armageddon; and Joan Fontaine looks very uncomfortable playing an armchair psychoanalyst. It's all pretty absurd, but Allen pumps it up with larger-than-life spectacle and lovely miniature work. Fantastic Voyage is the original psychedelic inner-space adventure. When a brilliant scientist falls into a coma with an inoperable blood clot in the brain, a surgical team embarks on a top-secret journey to the centre of the mind in a high-tech military submarine shrunk to microbial dimensions. Stephen Boyd stars as a colourless commander sent to keep an eye on things (though his eyes stay mostly on shapely medical assistant Raquel Welch), while Donald Pleasence is suitably twitchy as the claustrophobic medical consultant. The science is shaky at best, but the imaginative spectacle is marvellous: scuba-diving surgeons battle white blood cells, tap the lungs to replenish the oxygen supply and shoot the aorta like daredevil surfers. The film took home a well-deserved Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Director Richard Fleischer, who had previously turned Disney's 1954 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea into one of the most riveting submarine adventures of all time, creates a picture so taut with cold-war tensions and cloak-and-dagger secrecy that niggling scientific contradictions (such as, how do miniaturised humans breathe full-sized air molecules?) seem moot. --Sean Axmaker
It was a cold Halloween night in 1963 when six year old Michael Myers brutally murdered his 17-year-old sister. Fifteen years later he escapes from prison and returns home...
The rollicking adventures of Robin Hood in the long running TV series starring Richard Green as the titular green tight-clad hero. Includes the complete first series with the following episodes: The Coming Of Robin Hood The Moneylender Dead Or Alive Friar Tuck Maid Marian A Guest For The Gallows The Challenge Queen Eleanor Checkmate The Ordeal A Husband For Marian The Highlander The Youngest Outlaw The Betrothal The Alchemist The Jongleur The Brothers The Intruders
You can't kill the bogeyman", the children insist to a terrorised Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) in the original Halloween. How right they are. Laurie is gone, but guess who's back in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers? Acting as if the third entry never existed, this instalment picks up 10 years after the original, with mad maniac Myers in a coma and moved to a new facility. But wouldn't you know it that as soon as a loose-lipped orderly lets slip that Myers has a surviving niece he springs back into action, leaving a bloody trail of corpses on the road to Haddonfield. Donald Pleasance returns as Dr Loomis, scarred and crippled from his last encounter with Myers and seething with a fanatical zeal to stop the freak from repeating his previous rampage. Pleasance is the best thing about the film as an ageing hero seemingly on the verge of madness who drags a bum leg in his manic rush to save little orphan Jamie (Danielle Harris), the 10-year-old waif terrorised by her homicidal uncle. Director Dwight Little has managed a generic if professional slasher picture, rife with improbabilities and dominated by a killer whose superhuman powers reach near-mystical dimensions, but he delivers the goods: shocks, stabs and cold, cruel killings. --Sean Axmaker, Amazon.com
Master of Italian Horror Dario Argento is joined by Jennifer Connelly for a gory 80s classic in Phenomena, a terrifying slice of fear cinema that mixes extreme violence, pounding Metal music, a vicious chimp wielding a scalpel and enough buzzing insects to choke an entire school... Poor sleepwalking Jennifer doesn't fit in at her boarding school and her uncanny ability to control insects isn't helping her popularity. With the aid of a local Entomologist (Donald Pleasence), can she use her psychic insect skills to find the killer who's leaving her fellow pupils in bloody pieces? Argento piles on the bloody kills and surreal nightmares as the deafening buzz of a million bugs shatters your eardrums in one of the most demented Body-Horror movies ever produced. Special Features: HD Blu-ray and SD DVD presentation of the Italian cut of the film Original Italian and English Stereo Audio Brand new subtitle translation of the Italian and optional English subtitles of the English audio Dario's Monkey Business: The Making of Phenomena - A 50 minute long documentary featuring interview with key talent behind the film including Director Dario Argento, star Daria Nicolodi, underwater photographer Gianlorenzo Battaglia and more! Music for Maggots - An interview with composer Claudio Simonetti Creepers for Creatures - Sergio Stivaletti live Q&A sessions from Dublin and Edinburgh Exclusive collector's booklet featuring brand new writing on the film by Alan Jones, author of 'Profondo Argento' Reversible sleeve with original and newly commissioned artwork
Starting around Halloween 4, that masked nut Michael Myers stopped chasing his sister (played by Jamie Lee Curtis in the first and second films, as well as Halloween H20) and went after his niece. Now he's chasing her around again in part 5, but it's a lot of other people who die in the process. Donald Pleasence continues his mad-doctor bit from the earlier movies, Danielle Harris is the unfortunate relation, and Donald L. Shanks plays the monster. The film is an improvement on parts 2 and 4 (part 3 having nothing to do with Michael Myers), but it still amounts to routine slaughter with none of John Carpenter's stylistic brilliance from the original movie. --Tom Keogh, Amazon.com
A group of teens win a contest to spend a night in Michael Myers' childhood home to be broadcast live on the internet. But things go frightfully wrong and the game turns into a struggle to make it out of the house alive.
Please wait. Loading...
This site uses cookies.
More details in our privacy policy