Black comedies don’t come much blacker than cult favourite, Harold and Maude (1972), and they don’t come much funnier either. It seems that director Hal Ashby was the perfect choice to mine a load of eccentricity from the original Colin Higgins script, about the unlikely romance between a death-obsessed 19-year-old named Harold (Bud Cort) and a life-loving 79-year-old widow named Maude (Ruth Gordon). They meet at a funeral, and Maude finds something oddly appealing about Harold, urging him to “reach out” and grab life by the lapels as opposed to dwelling morbidly on mortality. Harold grows fond of the old gal–she’s a lot more fun than the girls his mother desperately tries to match him up with- -and together they make Harold and Maude one of the sweetest and most unconventional love stories ever made. Much of the early humour arises from Harold’ s outrageous suicide fantasies, played out as a kind of twisted parlour game to mortify his mother, who has grown immune to her strange son’s antics. Gradually, however, the film’s clever humour shifts to a brighter outlook and finally arrives at a point where Harold is truly happy to be alive. Featuring soundtrack songs by Cat Stevens, this comedy certainly won’t appeal to all tastes (it was a box-office flop when first released), but if you’re on its quirky wavelength, it might just strike you as one of the funniest films you’ve ever seen. –Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

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Amazon.co.uk Review
This sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe Hooper (Poltergeist, Lifeforce, Salem’s Lot), may be notorious for its title, but it’s also a damn fine piece of moviemaking. And it’s blood-curdling scary, too. Loosely based on the true crimes of Ed Gein (also a partial inspiration for Psycho), the original Jeffrey Dahmer, Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows a group of teenagers who pick up a hitchhiker and wind up in a backwoods horror chamber where they’re held captive, tortured, chopped up, and impaled on meat hooks by a demented cannibalistic family, including a character known as Leatherface who maniacally wields one helluva chainsaw. The movie’s powerful sense of dread is heightened by its grainy, semi-documentary style–but it also has a wicked sense of humour (and not that camp, self-referential variety that became so tiresome in subsequent horror films of the 70s, 80s and 90s). OK, in case you couldn’t tell, it’s “not for everyone”, but as a landmark in the development of the horror/slasher genre, it ranks with Psycho, Halloween, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. –Jim Emerson

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre – The Seriously Ultimate Edition

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Amazon.co.uk Review
The Abominable Dr Phibes is an unusually beautiful horror classic in which Vincent Price stars as the titular genius who specialises in organ music, theology and concocting bizarre deaths for anyone who wrongs him. Discovering why is half the fun, so for now let’s just say that Phibes is a little mad and very, very angry. Aided by his assistant, the lovely, silent Vulnavia, Phibes begins cutting a gory swathe through London’s medical community, with the dogged Inspector Trout hot on his tail. The film contains many pleasures–exquisite art direction and a dark sense of humour among them–but the real treat is in watching an old pro such as Price at work. Whether he’s playing his organ, staring down a victim or drinking through his neck, Price is at the top of his game. He mixes dark menace with wry comic touches, revealing both Phibes’ maniacal obsession and offhanded confidence in his own genius. Settle in for an evening of elegant gore–and if an attractive, mute deliverywoman comes to the door, whatever you do, don’t answer! –Ali Davis

The Abominable Dr. Phibes

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Amazon.co.uk Review
This sensational, extremely influential, 1974 low-budget horror movie directed by Tobe Hooper (Poltergeist, Lifeforce, Salem’s Lot), may be notorious for its title, but it’s also a damn fine piece of moviemaking. And it’s blood-curdling scary, too. Loosely based on the true crimes of Ed Gein (also a partial inspiration for Psycho), the original Jeffrey Dahmer, Texas Chainsaw Massacre follows a group of teenagers who pick up a hitchhiker and wind up in a backwoods horror chamber where they’re held captive, tortured, chopped up, and impaled on meat hooks by a demented cannibalistic family, including a character known as Leatherface who maniacally wields one helluva chainsaw. The movie’s powerful sense of dread is heightened by its grainy, semi-documentary style–but it also has a wicked sense of humour (and not that camp, self-referential variety that became so tiresome in subsequent horror films of the 70s, 80s and 90s). OK, in case you couldn’t tell, it’s “not for everyone”, but as a landmark in the development of the horror/slasher genre, it ranks with Psycho, Halloween, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. –Jim Emerson

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre – The Seriously Ultimate Edition

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Amazon.co.uk Review
Ok, let’s get all the disclaimers out of the way first. Despite its colourful (if crude) animation, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is in no way meant for kids. It is chock full of profanity that might even make Quentin Tarantino blanch and has blasphemous references to God, Satan, Saddam Hussein (who’s sleeping with Satan, literally), and Canada. It’s rife with scatological humour, suggestive sexual situations, political incorrectness and gleeful, rampant vulgarity. And it’s probably one of the most brilliant satires ever made. The plot: flatulent Canadian gross-meisters Terrance and Philip hit the big screen, and the South Park quartet of third graders–Stan, Kyle, Kenny, and Cartman–begin repeating their profane one-liners ad infinitum. The parents of South Park, led by Kyle’s overbearing mom, form “Mothers Against Canada”, blaming their neighbours to the north for their children’s corruption and taking Terrance and Philip as war prisoners. It’s up to the kids then to rescue their heroes from execution, not mention a brooding Satan, who’s planning to take over the world. To give away any more of the plot would destroy the fun, but this feature-length version of Trey Parker and Matt Stone’s Comedy Central hit is a dead-on and hilarious send-up of pop culture. And did we mention it’s a musical? From the opening production number “Mountain Town” to the cheerful anti-profanity sing-along “It’s Easy, MMMKay” to Satan’s faux-Disney ballad “Up There”, Parker (who wrote or cowrote all the songs) brilliantly shoots down every earnest musical from Beauty and the Beast to Les Misérables. And in advocating free speech and satirising well-meaning but misguided parental censorship groups, Bigger, Longer & Uncut hits home against adult paranoia and hypocrisy with a vengeance. And the jokes, while indeed vulgar and gross, are hysterical; we can’t repeat them here, especially the lyrics to Terrance and Philip’s hit song, but you’ll be rolling on the floor. Don’t worry, though–to paraphrase Cartman, this movie won’t warp your fragile little mind. –Mark Englehart

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut

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Amazon.co.uk Review
Black comedies don’t come much blacker than cult favourite, Harold and Maude (1972), and they don’t come much funnier either. It seems that director Hal Ashby was the perfect choice to mine a load of eccentricity from the original Colin Higgins script, about the unlikely romance between a death-obsessed 19-year-old named Harold (Bud Cort) and a life-loving 79-year-old widow named Maude (Ruth Gordon). They meet at a funeral, and Maude finds something oddly appealing about Harold, urging him to “reach out” and grab life by the lapels as opposed to dwelling morbidly on mortality. Harold grows fond of the old gal–she’s a lot more fun than the girls his mother desperately tries to match him up with- -and together they make Harold and Maude one of the sweetest and most unconventional love stories ever made. Much of the early humour arises from Harold’ s outrageous suicide fantasies, played out as a kind of twisted parlour game to mortify his mother, who has grown immune to her strange son’s antics. Gradually, however, the film’s clever humour shifts to a brighter outlook and finally arrives at a point where Harold is truly happy to be alive. Featuring soundtrack songs by Cat Stevens, this comedy certainly won’t appeal to all tastes (it was a box-office flop when first released), but if you’re on its quirky wavelength, it might just strike you as one of the funniest films you’ve ever seen. –Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Harold and Maude

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Amazon.co.uk Review
Tremors didn’t actually break any new ground (even though its tunnelling worm monsters certainly did), but it revved up the classic monster-movie formulas of the 1950s with such energetic enthusiasm and humour that it made everything old seem new again. It’s also got a cast full of enjoyable actors who clearly had a lot of fun making the film, and director Ron Underwood strikes just the right balance of comedy and terror as a band of small-town rednecks battles a lot of really nasty-looking giant worms. The special effects are great, the one-liners fly fast and furious between heroes Kevin Bacon and Fred Ward (and yes, that’s country star Reba McEntire packin’ awesome firepower), and it’s all done with the kind of flair one rarely associates with goofy monster flicks like this. –Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

Tremors

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