The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 109

THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 2006 i3; p3 3 I A I 1 the toplO HALLOWEEN Perhaps a walk in The Woods, or a trip on Terror Train frM iA 1 fS, II I The most popular DVDs for the week ended Oct. 22, according to Blockbuster Video Canada. RENTALS 1 The Break-Up 2 Click 3 Over the Hedge 4 X-Men: The Last Stand 5 The Omen (2006) 6 Lucky Number Slevin 7 The Lake House 8 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift 9 Behind Enemy Lines: The Boxed Set 10 American Dreamz SALES 1 Over the Hedge 2 The Break-Up 3 The Omen (2006) 4 Click 5 The Little Mermaid 6 X-Men: The Last Stand 7 The Fox and the Hound (Special Edition) 8 Scarface (Platinum Edition) 9 The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift 10 Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties Bruce (Evil Dead) Campbell, left, heads the creepy cast of The Woods, about a girls' school with a difference. CONTINUED FROM il Rabid (1977) Yup, David Cronenberg, one of our country's finest directors and a horror connoisseur, helmed this one here early in his career. Porn starlet Marilyn Chambers took a break from the hard core stuff to star as a vampire of sorts.

Her sucker is located in her armpit and she uses it, during rather intimate encounters, to turn people into rabid zombies. With scenes shot at Cavendish mall in Cote St. Luc, the Cremazie metro station and Nuns' Island. Also with Joe Silver, Una Kay and Vlasta Vrana, a local actor with an incredible number of film and television credits. Terror Train (1980) What do you get when you place Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Howard Busgang, Charlie Biddle Sr.

and Steve Michaels, Vanity, a slew of teens looking for a party, a really bizarre magician played by David Copperfield, and an unknown serial killer, on board a moving train on New Year's Eve? You get this very impressive Canadian slasher film, another production from Harold Green-berg, directed by the respected Roger Spottiswoode. It's a tale of vengeance and a fun one, at that. Locations? Ze train, boss, ze train. Of Unknown Origin (1983) Peter (Robocop) Weller is terrific as a man who discovers he has got a serious rat problem at home after his wife (former Canadian Playboy centrefold, current Gene Simmons squeeze Shannon Tweed, who gratuitously bares her breasts in the film's opening moments) and child leave on vacation. It's frightful good fun as he goes quite mad trying to eradicate the infestation and we witness his demise from the rat's POV Dubbed a cult classic by some.

Also with Jennifer Dale, Maury Chaykin, Kenneth Welsh, Louis Del Grande and local personality Jimmy Tap! Directed by the late George Cos-matos (Tombstone, Rambo: First Blood, Part II). Pin (1988) Pin, short for Pinocchio, is an anatomically correct medical dum- turned into a killer by its host, the Trickster, well-played by T. Ryder Smith. Fun due to its genre film references, and Smith's performance, but otherwise a fairly ho-hum, macabre whodunit. Frank Langella (Dracula, Superman Returns) plays a detective and former radio DJ Dean Hagopian has a small part, as well.

Shot mostly in studio. Bleeders (1997) Quebec's talented, soft-spoken Dupuis followed up his role as a murderous android in Screamers by portraying John Strauss, who returns to his ancestral home to seek a cure for his mysterious, deadly blood disease. A doctor (Rutger Hauer of Bladerunner) learns that he's damned by mutants -played by amputee actors that generations of inbreeding have spawned. Filmed in studio at Montreal's National Film Board and on Grand Manan Island, N.B. The Woods (2006) Just released on DVD, this shocker helmed by Lucky McKee (2002's May), deals with a school for girls located deep in the woods and the odd characters and circumstances that make life sheer hell for the unsuspecting lasses.

Featuring unusual effects and a very dark atmosphere, it has also got a talented cast, led by veteran Bruce (Evil Dead) Campbell, and including Gordon Cur-rie, Patricia Clarkson, Emma Campbell, Catherine Colvey, Lauren Birkell and Rachel Nichols. Shot in studio at Mel's Cite du Cinema. Small Gauge Trauma (2006) Just released during FantAsia's 10th incarnation, this compilation of 13 of the local film festival's best shorts will hit the spot with fans of the genre. Highlighting the work of international filmmakers, it's got everything, including a twisted nun's tale from the U.K., a terrific 20-minute zombie short from Portugal, several Asian selections and a disturbing claymation selection from hot U.K. animator Robert Morgan.

Features an entertaining introduction by Montreal's Mitch Davis, the festival's perennial co-director of international programming. Bram Eisenthal is a Montreal writer and former Montreal film publicist. He worked on the films Screamers and Bleeders. my created by a country doctor (Terry O'Quinn, of TV's Lost) to teach his children (Cyndy Preston, David Hewlett) about sex. When the doctor and his wife die accidentally, the son develops a sick attachment to the dummy, becomes its alter ego and turns to murder to keep his sister close.

Well-directed by Sandor Stern, with extremely chilling moments reminiscent of Psycho. Filmed in Iberville and St. Lambert. Screamers (1994) Shot in a Quebec cement quarry, at Olympic Stadium and other local venues, this futuristic thriller pits military commander Peter Weller and his troops, including Quebec vedette Roy Dupuis and sexy Jennifer Rubin, against an opposing army and "screamers," underground killing machines that are not only deadly, they can re-engineer new generations of themselves. Based on a short story by Philip K.

Dick. Brainscan (1994) Young Terminator 2 prodigy Edward Furlong created loads of buzz on set with his brattish antics in this tale of a teen who gets sucked into playing a computer game and is the video GEEK SPEAKS Tired of the top 10? Here are recommendations from deep in the video-store aisles: new on the SHELVES Genius behind Napoleon dynamite can't wrestle Nacho Libre into 5-starfilm y'. il sit mimum i C3' liii" mmffimm0 JEAN-PHILIPPE CHENIER DVDdelagare 1789 Graham Blvd. 514-731-4484 Robert et Robert (1978 French with English subtitles) is about an obsessive cab driver and a shy policeman-to-be desperately looking for their soulmates, but who finally end up becoming the strangest of friends. Claude Lelouch takes an insightful look at friendship and loneliness with sharp dialogue and clever directing that allows Charles Den-ner and Jacques Villeret to show their amazing range as actors.

They lead us into the most delirious situations, which are also tinged with tenderness and melancholy Being There (1979) is about a simple-minded gardener who knows life only through television. His path will lead him to meet the most influential people in America who believe he's some kind of genius. The movie takes a great bite at American politics and is full of symbolism that will leave you speechless. Adapted by Jerzy Kosinski from his novel of the same name and starring Peter Sellers. coming NEXT WEEK A selection of DVDs scheduled for release on Tuesday: Mission: Impossible 3 (Two disc collector edition) LoudQUIETIoud: A Film About The Pixies It's a Wonderful Life 60th Anniversary Edition Keeping Up with the Steins C.S.I.

Miami: The Complete Fourth Season Ghost Whisperer: The Complete First Season Kids in the Hall: Complete Season 5 The Tarzan Collection Starring Johnny Weissmuller, Vol. 2 Van Morrison Live At Montreux 1980S 1974 AMAZON. CA PARAMOUNT PICTURES The animated look of the film and Jack Black's charm and expressive eyebrows are not enough to save Nacho Libre. Nacho Libre This fails in just about every department except one: production design. There's a lot of love in the textures and especially the Mexican wrestling costumes, but the rest of this half-baked comedy featuring Jack Black as a monk with a penchant for smack-downs is entirely anemic both literally and figuratively Not only is Black a rather unconvincing Latino, but his eyebrows work for only so long before we begin to crave real performance.

Director and co-writer Jared (Napoleon Dynamite) Hess completely misses the quirky chemistry of his earlier sleeper hit. Extras include behind-the-scenes featurettes, comic book and luchador creator, and songs by Black. Katherine Monk Monster House A high-end computer-generated cartoon about two kids who believe the house next door is imbued with a power to transport objects and people into a different dimension. Decent family entertainment, but lacking creative inspiration beyond a simple take on To Kill a Mockingbird. The visuals and virtual angles are nonetheless impressive.

Features the voices of Jason Lee, Steve Buscemi and Catherine O'Hara. Extras include featurettes Imaginary Heroes and Making it Real, filmmaker commentary, The Art of Monster House photo gallery and The Adventure Continues Online with DVD-ROM link to games and downloads. KM Reservoir Dogs 15th Anniversary Edition Quentin Tarantino probably needs the cash infusion, so why not go out and complement your 10th anniversary editions with this 15th anniversary edition, which features select scene commentary pulp factoids viewer, featurettes, tipping guide, deleted scenes, interviews with Tarantino and others, K-Billy Sounds of the 1970s. Then again, if you didn't like this movie about hit men that gave birth to the ultra-violence of modern U.S. cinema and made Tarantino an art-house favourite, then ignore this transparent money grab.

KM Marie Antoinette (1938) Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette just wants to have fun, but here, she's a gallant lady, played by Norma Shearer (for whom the project was developed by her husband, Irving Thalberg, though he did not live to see it complet ed). This M.A. slums a bit in the gambling salons and smiles at the gaucheries of her childlike husband (Robert Morley), but ultimately rises to the historical occasion by transforming herself into a model American middle-class mom, modestly tending to her children in the dungeons of the Conciergerie. Also stars John Barrymore as a sarcastic and worldly Louis XV-David Kerr, New York Times Creature Comforts Merry Christmas Everybody! Nick (Wallace Gromit) Park's best work transposes real dialogue from Brits on the street to animate clay characters. This collection of Christmas material from his UK.

TV series includes how a partridge manages to get on 1 1 1 people were not afraid to die in the hopes of overthrowing a corrupt government, but there's no getting away from the film's affectations. Extras include The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins.KM The Road to Cuantanamo Michael Winterbottom reconstructs recent events with the help of actors, and real life subjects, in this dramatized documentary about the United States and its policy of imprisoning foreign nationals without due process. But Win-terbottom's film leaves the viewer with the strange impression that the rhetoric doesn't match the reality Extras include digital transfer and more. KM same depth, or subversive sense of humour, but he does understand a thing or two about camp, which means the more ridiculous Slither becomes, the more entertainment it delivers from its key cast, led by Nathan Filion, Michael Rooker and Elizabeth Banks. Extras include deleted scenes, visual effects unveiled, The King of Cult video diary and the making-of KM La Commune It's Paris, 1871, and the people have overthrown Versailles.

Filmmaker Peter Watkins's anachronistic hook is that he gives the people a chance to vent their collective spleen by throwing a television camera in their faces. It's a useful technique, since it explores the seeds of revolt, and takes us back to a time when the with life after being evicted from a pear tree. Sweet, original and always worth watching over again, it's a nice alternative to the more predictable seasonal offerings. Watch for a boxed set of the Creature Comforts TV show. Extras include the making-of and the people behind the puppets.

KM Slither Though his name is nowhere to be seen on its credits, Slither oves a lot to the spirit and famously depraved creativity of Canada's creep king, David Cronenberg. But unlike Cronenberg, James Gunn ends up saying very little which is kind of too bad, because at the heart of every cheapo horror movie is the mangled form of a social message eager to get out. Gunn doesn't have the Cot a video clerk too brilliant to keep to yourself? Send hisher name with store name, location and phone number to thegazette.canwest.com- i.