Fire up the mystery machine and crack open the Scooby snacks!  We have had a bit of a zombie orgy this week. Not the dirty kind, though, get your mind out of the gutter. We were very pleased to finally get Day Of The Dead and the hardcore violence that is Eastern Promises on Blu-ray as well as repeatedly watching the trailer for George A Romero’s Diary Of The Dead which looks almost good enough to forgive George for the shocking Land Of The Dead. 

This week: House Of The Dead and 20 Million Miles To Earth.

Like us, we're sure you have spent time pumping £1 coins into House Of The Dead down at the local arcade, we thought it only right to finally watch the movie of the same name. The set up is real paint-by-numbers stuff; a bunch of good-looking teens head to an remote island for a ‘rave’ only to be warned by the shady captain of the charter boat not to go to the ‘Island Of Death’   

Imagine their surprise when they get there only to find the place deserted, and it is only a matter of time before they are stalked by the living dead. The director Uwe Boll helpfully spliced a whole load of footage from the game to remind us what it was all about, but one thing we were left asking was how come this bunch of underwear models and former pornstars managed to handle shotguns and desert eagles so effectively? If you are hungover and want to put your brain into neutral and watch a bit of gore, this is the one for you.

One of the stranger Blu-ray releases so far was 20 Million Miles To Earth from 1957, we were excited to see that there was the option to watch the new colourised version or kick it old school with black and white.  

A spaceship crashes back to earth after a trip to Venus with some samples on board and wouldn’t you just know it, one of them gets out and falls into the hands of a zoologist and goes on a rampage. The dialogue has that really funny 1950’s awkwardness and the effects are fairly typical of the time – there is a brilliant scene where the monster has a fight with an elephant. All in all this is one that gets the seal of approval from Movies From Beyond and you can take that to the (blood) bank!

[story by Simon Woodley]