I'd trade my Glave for a Krull DVD

Krull is a very underrated film, I find. It crops up in sad unwanted corners, like the 5* channel on a sunday afternoon, confined to the 19th century syphillitic lunatic asylum of the media while inferior product gets it on on the proper channels.

Sad.

Krull, is of course a typical and utterly banal revival fantasy swashbuckler of the early 1980s - see also The Sword and the Sorceror, Conan, Ladyhawke etc - featuring the never seen again Ken Marshall, an uncharismatic pretty boy who at least isn't wearing a girls skirt like Tom Cruise in Legend; and also the English, but dubbed by American Lindsay Crouse, Lysette Antony who was seen to best advantage not wearing very much in the Depeche Mode video for "I Feel You."

The plot is of the typical "Rescue the princess from evil fascist lizard being" variety, with the usual "Oh no, our primary method of finding the princess has failed what can we do" "Well we can follow this extremely dangerous alternative that probably won;t work but just might even though it seemingly bears no relevance to our problem" "OK then" obstacle.

In the way, are snake brained Barabarellan leathermen called Slayers, who's reptile brain escapes are always censored out of matinee showings much to many a bloodthirsty child's disappointment. They have laser staffs (rather like the Gou'ald in Stargate) which happily can only fire once before they revert to a stabbier use. They serve "The Beast" who lives in a tormentier version of Howl's Moving Castle and who consists of a badly designed creature mixed in with close up library shots of an Iguana.

Yes, it's derivative, and silly, with mystically daft weapon, horrible comic relief and annoying basin haircut child - many of the rules of "How to be an Evil Overlord" have clearly been lifted from this film. But, it has a great strength, a fantastic UK and Irish supporting cast - ALun Armstrong, Liam Neeson, Robbie Coltrane, Freddie Jones, Francesca Annis an, err, Tucker Jenkins from Grange Hill. Their character banterings and bickerings make the film, and indeed save it from the more wooden leads, while "Carry On's" Bernard Bresslaw gets the more lumbering philosophical dialogue to show off his proper acting aspirations.

You can guess if it all ends happily or not! It doesn't for me, because Ive wanted to find it on DVD for ages. Yes, it's on TV all the bloody time, BUT I WANT IT FOR REAL DAMMIT. And I can't.

SHORT FILM - The Drowned World

The Creeping Terror of Mars...

It's not there to be seen at the moment, it's crimson brilliance hidden away until it next approaches opposition in a year or so's time. Jupiter entertains all night, Venus glitters in the frozen mornings and soon Saturn will be shaking off his duvet just before the dawn.

But not planet Mars, not for now.

And in some ways, this suits me fine.

To see Mars, late at night, in silence, on your own, is to be reminded of the tentacled terrors that we know DON'T, but REALLY DO, wait for their chance to cross the gulf of space between us and devour our living blood. I go inside after observing Mars, and every hanging coat, every shadow, every shadow cast by a streetlight, becomes an animate creature of terrifying, horrifying, scareifying Martian origin waiting to put a clawed finger on your shoulder the moment your eyes close.

You wake in Sleep Paralysis, and just beyond your frozen visual periphary, an upright bipedal grey martian prepares his probes and samplers for journeys into unmentionable parts. They control the horizontal, they control the vertical. They control the speed with which they open up your stomach and eat your intestines while you watch.

Observing with a telescope at 2am, as I have done, is worse. The green flash of launching cylinders is an imagined nightmare only a heartbeat away, the collapse of civilization under piles of mouldering, mutating red weed.

I shiver with fear every time I look at it. I bet many of you do too, as you stand alone surrounded my menacing whispering trees. But we all come back for more to see the God of War gaze contemptuously down at us, seeding our mind with fears...

Is there Life on Mars

Hiding in obscure little canteens at work. The size of phone booths. Populated by me, and a few fork lift truck drivers, an entirely alien race in themselves. Quiet.

And often I had the TV to myself, the fact the remote didn't work is only a minor irritation.

So, a couple of times, I've been able to sit eating my sandwiches (processed hand and processed cheese atop processed bread) and take in a bit of George Pal's 1953 version of War of the Worlds. And you know what, it stands up pretty well!

The colours are lush...the effects astonishing for the time...the spaceships look like they belong on the Paris Metro...the aliens are interesting...Gene Barry is brick of chin but not too wooden...it does follow elements of the book...the heat rays and green ball lightning effects looks great...there are some wonderful stereotyped foreign scientists especially the dutch woman who later found herself in Tenko I must think...buildings being blown up for no clear strategic reason APART FROM SHEER MARTIAN EVIL...look at that water tower go up boys!...Spielberg blatantly ripped off the martians for ET and justice was served when his War of the Worlds turned out to be shit.

It packs a lot into to its 80 minutes. Still deserves to be regarded highly. Although not as highly as a good English set version of the Wells book  would be if it ever got made. And not by Pendragon Pictures.