Medusa (DVD)

A pair of American siblings living in Greece have drained the family fortune funding their hedonistic lifestyle. While Sarah is content to marry a Greek millionaire to continue living as she is accustomed to, Jeffrey's debts to the mob mean the walls are closing in on him. When word of changes to their uncle's will reaches Greece, Jeffrey becomes gripped with paranoiac fear. Soon people connected to the will are being killed off one by one by a mysterious masked killer. Is it really Jeffrey committing these murders...or is the truth something far more sinister and perverse

According to its screenwriter, Medusa was only made because star George Hamilton wanted to have an all-expenses-paid honeymoon in Greece. At the time, Hamilton was engaged to beautiful blonde model-actress Alana Collins (he also gave her a role in the film.) Collins would divorce Hamilton only a few years later, marrying rock star Rod Stewart in 1979 and becoming Alana Stewart. This was the second movie produced by Hamilton, following his biopic of the daredevil motorcycle rider Evel Knievel (1971). Director Gordon Hessler and screenwriter Christopher Wicking had previously collaborated on several AIP horror movies shot in England, including Scream and Scream Again, Cry of the Banshee and Murders in the Rue Morgue, which lends an air of legitimacy to Medusa's European horror feel. Cameron Mitchell is probably best known for his performances in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953), the film version of Carousel (1956) and as Uncle Buck in the western TV series, The High Chaparral (1967-1971). Shapely Italian redhead Luciana Paluzzi is fondly remembered by a generation of hormonal teenagers for the fourth James Bond film, Thunderball (1965) and the bizarre Japanese-American co-production The Green Slime (1968).

• horror