The Gaunt Man - *

Henry doesn't like you, and wants you dead

1984, USA/UK, Colour, 128 minutes

Directed by Henry St John. Written by Henry St John, Reggie Wiknit, Hank "Ghastly" Rastly

Starring Peter Holdan, Mercy Jones, Lucy Brown

Or does he? Another stupid mystery thriller that has a great title but doesn't deliver. So far as can be seen the plot involves Henry, a shadowy figure who kills his enemies. Why? It is never explained. All we ever find out is that he constructs elaborate kill sequences that even the most inept investigator could track down. Yet they don't. It is almost like there is a conspiracy of stupid that includes the actors and the production crew in what can only be described as a mystery for jerks who don't much mind being patronised to by fools.

Great line or moment – none

Reviewed by Juan Incognito

Clack - *

Build it. Build it. Play again.

1984, USA, Colour, 91 minutes

Directed by Nigel Attenwood. Written by Randy “T-bone” Turner

Starring Cary James, Bobbi Regent, Hans Schemeckler

A weak attempt to dramatise the popular block building arcade game of the early 80's. In the game, players are given the outline of a building, and have to manouver different shaped blocks in the space to build it without any extra bits. The movie is about a firm of architects that take the most extreme jobs on earth; moving blocks around volcanos and on the moon in a similar (and similarly dull) manner to the game. One of their clients turns out to be using one of their old buildings (in the Antarctic) as a world-threatening base of operations. As the only people with knowledge of the site they're sent in to “unbuild” it. Crap action scenes. Nice scenery.

Watch out for – British director Attenwood (defining slumming with this film) in his cameo as an amazed newspaperman.

Quote – “The nuclear warheads I can deal with, it's the wallpaper that really vandalises my design.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Presence of Mynd - ***½

Existence in the blink of a high

1984, Italy, Colour, 157 minutes

Directed by Serito Pantoni. Written by Mantino Motto

Starring Humberto Ilago, Sabina Frida, Nunzio Drahma, Takahito Azuma

The earth is merely the hallucinations of a wizard high on a drug called Mynd. Parts of the world begin to disappear when the wizard's parents send him to a detox centre. It's up to a rag-tag group of heroes (a big game hunter, a samurai, a Colombian drug lord, and a beat poet) to travel out of the wizard's mind to his world and try to keep him high. Sadly the genre of sorcery-related metaphysical adventure never caught on outside of the town halls of Sicily, the only place Pantoni's films have ever screened.

Watch out for – the scene where our heroes are shoved into a waiting room with other hallucinations of detoxing Mynd addicts.

Quote – “I thought we were special, but there's nothing special about drugs. Other than the ability to imagine entire worlds and civilisations.”

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk

Ghosts of Greater Boise - ***

Exclusive to VHS

1984, USA, Colour, 63 minutes

No writer or director credited

The ghosts of the metropolitan Boise area were well chronicled in the smash documentary Spirits of Boise . To cash in on that hit, a fly-by-night video production company made this disturbing knock off, focusing on the ghost of Boise's surrounding areas. While everyone thought that Spirits of Boise was a bit of a lark, this film puts the grimy willies into anyone foolish enough to watch it. The grainy video, amateur narration, and copious amounts of real ghosts are enough to make even the strongest man long for an episode of The Golden Girls. The origins of the tape are hotly debated; the most popular theory is that Spirit of Boise's producers commissioned it as an expensive prank during their cocaine-fueled post-success period. We're not convinced of that.

Watch out for – what happens when they turn the lights off in the Pressford farm's barn.

Quote – "Oh God....oh God.....oh God...."

Reviewed by R.P. Thunderdunk