Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Made at the height of Roger Corman’s successful Edgar Allan Poe series (with his perennialstar Vincent Price), these two pictures, while similar in tone to the Poe films, adapt two differentwriters. Tower of London, a remake of the Basil Rathbone/Boris Karloff film from 1935,is a version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, with Price taking on the role of the villainoushunchback, plotting and killing his way to the throne of England. The Haunted Palace,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Get this: Chinese nuclear tests have jolted the Pacific tectonic plate into accelerated motion,causing terrible volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and massive venting of gasses that will soonheat the Earth to unlivable conditions. The only way to set things right is to set off acounteractive nuclear blast. In downtown LA. Now, I have a very soft spot in my... er... head fordisaster movies, but Scorcher tested even my patience. The FX consist largely of footageli...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Loosely (to put it mildly) based on a Bram Stoker novel, this is the tale of the town ofD’Ampton, where once there was a monster (a clear reference to the Lambton Worm of legend).Archaeologist Peter Capaldi digs up the skull of what appears to be a giant snake. He andaristocrat Hugh Grant come to realize that a snake-worshipping cult is active in the area, and theysuspect Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe). They’re right: Donohoe is a snake-woman intenton sacrificing...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 2nd, 2003
Synopsis
Ian Richardson is Sir Francis Urquhart (FU to his friends), a scheming politician whocombines the guiles of Richard III and Iago. In House of Cards, the first mini-series ofthe trilogy, he is the Tory Chief Whip, and has just been disappointed in his expectations by anew prime minister he considers weak. Furious, Urquhart sets about the destruction of his ownprime minister. In To Play the King, Urquhart, now PM, comes up against the willfulnew king (who...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 28th, 2003
Synopsis
Charlton Heston drives around deserted Los Angeles. In the wake of a biological war, he isthe only human survivor of the plague. But he is not alone. At night, psychotic albino zombiescome out to kill him. After two years of war with the zombies (led by TV anchor turned madpreacher Anthony Zerbe), Heston discovers other human survivors. The race is on to see if hisblood can supply an antidote before these last people also perish of the plague. The first half ofthe fi...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 28th, 2003
Synopsis
Mother Karen Black, father Oliver Reed, young son Lee Montgomery and great-aunt BetteDavis escape New York to spend the summer at a country home. They get the huge mansion fora song, but the only catch is that they have to look after the aged owner of the house. Black takescharge of providing for the unseen old woman, and soon becomes dangerously obsessed withthe house. Strange accidents befall the family, and with each bad thing that happens to them, thehouse, which...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 28th, 2003
Synopsis
People have been disappearing from the Russell Square station of the London Underground.The attention of the police is only really drawn, however, when one of the vanished turns out tobe a man well-placed in the Ministry of Defence. Inspector Donald Pleasance (wonderfullycranky and rude) is on the job. Meanwhile, two university students are also caught up in themystery. The reason people have been going missing is because they are being kidnapped andeaten by the last...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
Richard Matheson, one of the most important talents in the horror field (his filmed novelsinclude Hell House, The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend -- the latterdone twice, as The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man), scripts this twoblack comedies. In The Comedy of Terrors, Vincent Price is the scheming owner of afuneral home. He has taken over the business from doddering and deaf Boris Karloff, and,desperate for money, forces t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
Steve Martin plays a tax lawyer who has let his job consume his life. This has already costhim his marriage, and might soon cost him his children. He engages in some chat room romance,but the woman he meets isn’t the blond lawyer he was expecting, but escaped con Queen Latifah,out to clear her name. She turns his life upside down, but all for the better, naturally. A good-natured, but hardly side-splitting comedy, with most of its big laughs given away in the trailer....
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
Adam Sandler plays Dave Buznik, an introverted executive who internalizes all of his anger.His life spins out of control when, on a business flight, a simple request for headphones leadsto his being charged with assault. He is obliged to submit to anger management therapy, underthe direction of the deeply unorthodox Jack Nicholson, whose role in life seems to be to makeSandler as miserable as possible. The set-up is extremely promising, the two leads clearly havegrea...
