Straight To Hell / Death And The Compass DVD – Sara Sugarman, Migual Sandoval

Double-bill of films from cult British director Alex Cox. In ‘Straight to Hell’ (1986), a gang of bank robbers headed by the hit-man Norwood (Sy Richardson) make their way into the desert with a suitcase full of stolen loot. They bury the money and stumble into an old oilfield settlement, the home of the caffeine-addicted McMahon gang. Everybody tries to play it cool, but with all these bizarre characters and the massive amounts of coffee being drunk it won’t be long before the tensions become unbearable. Also starring former-Clash frontman Joe Strummer. In ‘Death and the Compass’ (1992), celebrated detective Lonnrot (Peter Boyle) is on the trail of the notorious Red Sharlach (Christoper Eccleston) and will stop at nothing to bring him to justice. But when he finally tracks the villain down to the Villa Triste-Le-Roy, what he encounters there will tax his celebrated reasoning power to the very limit.

Two features. ‘Straight To Hell’ is perhaps the strangest film by cult writer-director Alex Cox. After a botched robbery, a band of thieves heads for the desert to take shelter, only to find that the wilderness hamlet into which they’ve stumbled is run by a murderous, incestuous clan of coffee addicts who are struggling for control against a small band of misfits and a greedy land developer. It all makes for weird, weird stuff, highlighted by a spontaneous song-and-dance production number and cameos from such punk luminaries as Elvis Costello (as a coffee-dispensing butler) and the Pogues (as three brain-dead caballeros). Also features ‘Death And The Compass’.

Straight To Hell:A team of inept hitmen (Sy Richardson Joe Strummer and Dick Rude) oversleep on the day of their big job and find their target has already fled town. Fearing reprisals from their boss (Jim Jarmusch) they pull a bank job and escape into the desert with Richardson’s pregnant girlfriend (Courtney Love). When their car breaks down they seek shelter in a ghost town inhabited by the McMahons (The Pogues Biff Yeager) a murderous and incestuous clan of gun-crazy coffee addicts.Death And The Compass:In a totalitarian metropolis of the future Erik Lonnrot (Peter Boyle) a gifted detective investigates a series of strange murders and disappearances that seem to implicate the insane crime lord Red Scarlach. Enlisting the help of Alonso Zunz (Christopher Eccleston) a principled journalist Lonnrot believes that he has uncovered a labyrinthine occult conspiracy. However has the investigator’s brilliance merely precipitated his own destruction?