DVD, Blu-ray and TV

The Nanny and The Blue Lamp? Just what these two anomalies are doing sandwiched together on DVD is anyone's guess. The former is a campy 1965 Hammer chiller about a bonkers nanny, played by Bette Davis in familiar kabuki make-up. The latter is a breathtakingly obsequious 1950 Ealing Studios tribute to the Metropolitan Police Force, which introduced the world to Dixon Of Dock Green.

Enjoyable coming-of-age saga from Joe Dante, set against the backdrop of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. Huckster movie director Lawrence Woolsey (John Goodman) arrives in a small Florida town to promote his latest gimmick-laden monster flick. Goodman's great as Woolsey (obviously based on William Castle), and Dante successfully evokes the era without being overly nostalgic.

Wes Craven directed this fairly faithful adaptation of DC's horror comic muck monster: a scientist caught in a chemical explosion in a Louisiana swamp gets transformed into a vegetable superbeing. Sadly, the script's clunky and the make-up SFX are tatty beyond belief—notably, the rubber suit that makes ol' Swampy look like a giant walking turd. Result; a travesty.

Reworked by Claude Chabrol after the death of screenwriter Henri-Georges Clouzot (The Wages Of Fear, Diabolique), L'Enfer sees poor François Cluzet suspect pretty wife Emmanuelle Béart of infidelity then gradually lose it as paranoia and doubt undermine his entire existence. Beautiful, but painful to watch.

Part of a triple DVD pack, this contains footage of German TV show Beat Club, a legendary showcase for the best bands of the era. Its late-'60s archive is now a valuable resource for DVD compilers. Like a visual companion to Uncut's Acid Daze CD given away two issues ago, Psychedelic High features Donovan, Arthur Brown, the Small Faces and The Nice all overlapping with that collection. The Who and The Moody Blues also attend what is mostly a very English psychedelic tea party, although The Byrds, Blue Cheer and Canned Heat fly the American freak flag.

The first in Takashi Miike's career-making Triad Society Trilogy. Set in Tokyo's Shinjuku district, rogue cop Kippei Shiina puts himself between local yakuza and a gay Taiwanese mob; cue cocaine-fuelled blow jobs, anal rape and old ladies having their eyeballs plucked out. A Hollywood remake seems unlikely.

Underrated 1989 adaptation of Jay McInerney's seminal NY nightlife novel, riddled with "Bolivian marching powder", period electro-pop and a brave (though criticised) performance from Michael J Fox as a broken-hearted magazine fact-checker who's burning the candle at three ends. Kiefer Sutherland's a bad influence. Dryly comic, painfully candid.

Sam (Jonathan Pryce) dreams of love and escape from his clerical job in a monolithic bureaucracy, but finds himself sucked ever deeper into a Kafkaesque nightmare. Michael Palin and Robert De Niro play brilliantly against type, while Terry Gilliam's dystopian vision broke the mould. Dazzling, disturbing, darkly comic and downright essential.

Paul Schrader's simmering 1991 study of a drug dealer's midlife crisis remains the script closest to his own heart. A maturer Travis Bickle, Willem Dafoe's loser is confused when "employer" Susan Sarandon goes legit, and panic-stricken when an ex-girlfriend dies and gunplay's required. Meditative rather than action-packed, it's grown over time.

The umpteenth retail release for this era-defining cash-cow of Scottish junkies, and the cracks are now beginning to show. Yes, it's a beautiful burst of propulsive film-making, but after the likes of Jesus's Son and Requiem For A Dream, it seems a little too eager to please, a little too chipper, too Ewan McGregor to be wholly credible.