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Village of the Damned, a review by addicted2dvd

Title: Village of the Damned Year: 1960 Director: Wolf Rilla Rating: NR Length: 77 Min. Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 1.85:1 Audio: English: Dolby Digital: Mono, French: Dolby Digital: Mono, Commentary: Dolby Digital: Mono Subtitles: English, French, Spanish

Stars:
George Sanders
Barbara Shelley
Martin Stephens
Michael Gwynn
Laurence Naismith
The Villagers

Plot:Extras:
Scene Access
Audio Commentary
Feature Trailers

My Thoughts:
I have been wanting to see this movie every since I saw the remake when it was first released. I am glad I finally got to see the original. One I enjoyed very much. Sure some of the few effects they used could have been better. But the glowing of the kids eyes was cool. Now that I have seen the original I can say the remake stayed pretty true to the original... but I prefer the original. One thing is that I liked how the characters were portrayed better. And another... I think the story in black and white added to the eeriness of the movie. I can see myself watching this one again. If you have only ever seen the remake... and enjoyed it... I must urge you to give the original a try.




Count:
Movie Count: 19
TV Ep. Count: 11
Other Count: 0
Time Started: 4:45am

(From Month Long Horror/Halloween Marathon: 2010 on October 7th, 2010)

The Odessa Files, a review by Rich

A quick trip through Latvia...



The plot begins on November 22, 1963, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Peter Miller, a young German reporter happens to see an ambulance on a highway. He chases the ambulance and discovers it contains an elderly Jewish Holocaust survivor who had committed suicide. The reporter obtains the diary of the man, which contains information on his life in the World War II camps, and the names of members of the SS who ran the camp. He makes up his mind to hunt the Nazi Eduard Roschmann who is mentioned in the diary, not just for a sensational cover story, but for a more serious personal reason.

Another powerful post-holocaust movie, superbly directed and acted. Based on thriller writer Freddie Forsyth book, the film masterfully blurs fiction and reality, mixed with tense action and suspense, to make a gem of a production. Recommended 6/10




(From Around the World in 80 DVD's on January 4th, 2008)

Tom's Random Reviews, a review by Tom

Title: Life On Mars: Series One
Year: 2006
Director:
Rating: 15
Length: 472 Min.
Video: Widescreen 1.78
Audio: English: Dolby Digital TrueHD, English: Dolby Digital Surround, Commentary: Dolby Digital Surround
Subtitles:

Stars:
John Simm
Philip Glenister
Liz White

Plot:
Sam Tyler (John Simm) is an ambitious young detective determined to keep the streets of 21st Century Manchester safe. However, the hunt for a serial killer becomes a personal vendetta when Sam suspects his girlfriend has been kidnapped by the very man he's tracking down.

But after a near fatal car accident, Sam wakes up, dazed and confused, in 1973, struggling to understand what's real. Has he gone back in time? Is he in a coma? Or has he simply gone insane? His new boss is hard-nosed DCI Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister), a man who gets results by trusting his gut instinct and using a 'fists first question later' policy.

Thrown head-first into this new world, Sam faces some of the hardest cases he has ever known. He has no idea why he is in 1973, but maybe if he can work out the reason, he can get home...

Extras:
Commentary
Featurettes
Interviews
Outtakes
Scene Access

I didn't really warm up to this series. As I said before, the time-travel element is only an excuse to set the series in the 70s. This series could just have been a series about a big city cop coming to a small town police force like it has been done many times before.
As a matter of fact the main character Sam reminded me very much of Simon Pegg's character in Hot Fuzz (okay, maybe Simon Pegg was influenced by this series, as it was first aired, when Hot Fuzz started filming). For one thing his attitude is very similar. And the fact, that we have a big city cop believing in a lot of procedures the police force he has been transferred to do not follow. Both characters feel like they have to bring morale to their new home.

I could have accepted that the time-travel is not a big part of the series, but I found the rest of the series to be a rather average cop show.

Only two episodes have shown potential what the series could have been. The fourth and the last episode of this series. Both are about Sam interferring with his family.
For the rest of the series, you wouldn't know that he is from the future if he wouldn't make certain comments from time to time, or him hearing voices of doctors and family calling for him to wake up from the coma (which he is in the future).

I will leave the second series on my wish list but I am not sure if I will buy it.

Episodes:

#	Episode	Rating
01	Episode 1
02	Episode 2
03	Episode 3
04	Episode 4
05	Episode 5
06	Episode 6
07	Episode 7
08	Episode 8

(From Tom's Random Reviews on May 24th, 2009)