"Actor: Susan Burgess"

• Gremlins | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £7.19   |  Saving you £6.80 (94.58%)   |  RRP £13.99

  When his absent-minded father gives young Billy Pelzer (Zach Galligan) a new pet, he warns him to abide by three rules. The rules get broken, of course, and the pet--a cute Mogwai named Gizmo--unwittingly gives birth to the vicious Gremlins who proceed to terrorise the town. Although the long shadow of Producer Steven Spielberg hangs over Joe Dante's 1984 comedy Gremlins almost as much as it did over Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist (1982), Dante doesn't allow it to overwhelm his own quirky style too much. Glimpses of Robbie the Robot and The Time Machine (which promptly disappears) at an inventors' convention reveal his passion for old-movie references (which culminated with Matinee, 1993). Aided and abetted by Spielberg's guidance and a script by Chris Columbus (who would go on to direct and produce the Home Alone franchise) and a music score by Jerry Goldsmith, Dante had all the help he needed to make the biggest hit of his career. Much of the humour derives from Dante's playful handling of the setting in Smallsville, USA, whose inhabitants are as much the target of his satire as they are of the Gremlins' unwanted solicitations. The xenophobic neighbour who warns prophetically of "gremlins" in foreign cars and machinery provides a subtext for the attack on homely American values, as does showing Invasion of the Body Snatchers on TV while the wicked Gremlins hatch. The sight of the little tykes cavorting in a bar, getting drunk and even dancing in pink leggings looks suspiciously like a satirical dig at the whole 1980's culture of selfishness: with their destructive impulses and overindulgences the Gremlins are the ultimate egotistical yuppies. As with many Spielberg projects, the bland hero saves the day for nostalgic, old-fashioned values, but there are plenty of laughs along the way--for example in the now-classic scene when the hero's mother fights off Gremlins in the kitchen by stuffing them in the blender and microwave. Dante's 1990 sequel is even more satirically pointed, and he effectively remade the original with Small Soldiers (1998), replacing Gremlins with toys. On the DVD: Disappointingly, there are no extra features at all here, aside from subtitles and "interactive menus"--which simply means there is an onscreen menu and it works. --Mark Walker

• The Manitou | DVD | (24/10/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £12.99

  Evil does not die...it waits to be re-born! Karen Tandy possesses a growing tumour on her back and is admitted to San Fran Cisco hospital. The doctors believe that it's a living creature and that a foetus is being born inside the growth! What lays in wait for Karen is far more terrifying than she can possibly imagine: the growth is actually a demonic 3-foot tall 400-year-old Native American who has somehow managed to get inside Karen's upper body! A heroic medicine man mu

• Safe | DVD | (14/02/2005) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £5.99

  A typically bored affluent Californian housewife's world of domestic oblivion careers off its axis when she develops a mystery illness that puts her at odds with every aspect of the world around her - cars dry cleaners hair perms and even the new couch! Gradually she develops nosebleeds vomiting and breathing problems and finally collapses. In a desperate search for what is 'safe' she opts for virtual isolation in a porcelain igloo in the Texas desert where the inhabitants drag round oxygen cylinders and the therapists act like evangelical preachers. Injected with horror comic touches and psychological suspense Safe is a visionary tale of the future. Has Carol brought her sickness upon herself or is she made vulnerable by a world that is more dangerous than we or she understands?