Forget mock horror flicks like The Blair Witch Project and the Paranormal Activity franchise and let’s get your teeth into some real horror. Real as in, like, it really happened.

When The Lights Went Out is a terrifying British ghost story based on a haunting that – if not genuine – did sincerely freak its victims out.

It was 1974 when the Maynard family moved into their ‘dream’ house in Yorkshire, England, only to discover a presence already there. Len, Jenny and their daughter Sally struggled to keep an already fragile family together as they were literally attacked by poltergeists, leading to the ultimate option of exorcism.

Though based on a true story, the film is a re-enactment that stars Steve Waddington (Sleepy Hollow), Kate Ashfield (Shaun Of The Dead), and Gary Lewis (Billy Elliot) and is produced by the people behind Bend It Like Beckham and The Buena Vista Social Club, so for a horror film, it has enough cred stamped over it to make even us believe.

When The Lights Went Out is available now on Blu-ray (RRP $29.95) and DVD (RRP $24.95) through Anchor Bay Entertainment.

Courtesy of the distributor, Cream has 10 copies on Blu-ray to give away. To try winning one email your name, address, the Subject heading ‘Lights Out’ and the answer to this question – What nationality does the word ‘poltergeist’ come from? – to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 17 May.

Government embarrassment, ministerial cock-ups, coalition rows, backroom deals, policy U-turns, spin-doctoring, political backstabbing, wild media speculation, and more time spent with one’s family… It can only be the eagerly-anticipated return of Armando Iannucci’s cutting political comedy The Thick Of It, in its final and fourth series.

Rebecca Front and Peter Capaldi reprise their BAFTA-winning roles as Nicola Murray and Malcolm Tucker, now consigned to the opposition benches, but still desperate for power. Roger Allam returns as Peter Mannion, the new Secretary of State for Social Affairs, supported by his team of special advisors and thwarted by his new coalition partners.

Inevitably there’s a scramble for the moral high-ground and several people (including Nicola) are calling for some sort of inquiry. Everyone wants to spin the story, and everyone wants their own version of the story out there, by fair means or foul. But as more and more fingers get pointed the bigger the scandal becomes, finally threatening to implicate everybody. Surely now, the truth will come out. Unless someone lies, or creates a diversion of some kind, or simply pretends not to remember anything. They wouldn’t do that, would they?

‘The Thick of It’ Series 4 is out now on DVD through Roadshow Home Entertainment, RRP $29.95.

Courtesy of the distributor, Cream has 5 copies of the Series 4 on DVD to give away. Simply email us your name, address and the Subject heading ‘Thick Of It’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 17 May. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

Labyrinth is based on the worldwide best-selling novel by Kate Mosse and produced by Ridley Scott. It is a gripping four-part TV mini-series, about two headstrong heroines battling to protect the secret of the Holy Grail. 

Living in different times, seventeen-year-old Alais Pelletier du Mas (Jessica Brown-Findlay) from 13^th century Carcassonne, and modern day PhD graduate Dr Alice Tanner (Canessa Kirby) must work together in order to save a 4,000-year-old secret from getting into the wrong hands. 

The mini-series boasts an all-star cast that also includes John Hurt (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), Sebastian Stan (Black Swan, Once Upon A Time), Tony Curran (Doctor Who, This Life) and Jessica Brown Findlay (Downton Abbey).

An epic tale that’ll have you captivated from beginning to end as the true legend of the Grail is unearthed.

Labyrinth is now available on DVD through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. To view a trailer of Labyrinth, click here.  

Courtesy of the distributor, Cream has 10 special packs to give away, including the original book by Kate Mosse and the mini-series on DVD. To try winning a pack, email your name, address, the Subject heading ‘Labyrinth’ (spell it right!) to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 17 May. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

One of the early pioneers of dubstep, ShockOne, aka: Karl Thomas, released his experimental anthem Adachigahara’s Theme back in 2009, quickly becoming a favourite in underground club circles.

Hailing from Perth but based in the UK, the artist has since gone on to deliver a string of successful singles that have become Beatport and iTunes number ones, with some of their videos hitting the million view mark on YouTube.

Add to this support from industry taste-makers including Pendulum, Knife Party, Matrix and Futurebound, and we’ve got a sure dance music winner on our hands.

Now, ShockOne is back in storming form, with a killer debut album, Universus which features the tracks Chaos Theory (big on bass), Harmonize (an uplifting drum’n’bass workout with an eastern tinge) and Lose Control (complete with vocoder vocals). There are plenty more, too, all in all making an album that’s good enough to have already hit number one on the iTunes Album and iTunes Dance charts.

Hear it and realise why. 

Courtesy of Viper/OneLove Recordings, Cream has 5 copies of Universus to give away. To try winning one, simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘ShockOne’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 10 May. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

One of the first records this scribe ever reviewed was LL Cool J’s I’m The Type Of Guy back in 1989. Yes, yes, I’m showing my age. Since then, the J has gone on to wreak havoc on MTV and Youtube, win a couple of Grammys and be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Indeed, he’s the first rap artist to have amassed 10 consecutive platinum-plus selling albums. And that’s impressive, to say the least.

Now LL Cool J returns with  a new album, Authentic, which features a most diverse array of collaborators. Underscoring the album’s roots of “being born out of a true love of all music”, contributions come courtesy of Chuck D, Snoop Dogg, Seal, Travis Barker, Eddie Van Halen, even ’70s R’n’B groovers Earth, Wind & Fire.

Says LL, “Collaborating with these myriad artists was an amazing experience and this album got me back to my roots and [so] is for fans across all generations who love real music too.”

Celebrating his 30th year in the music industry and spanning the genres of hip-hop, rock, club music and ballads, Authentic lives up to its name.  Antonino Tati

Authentic is out through 429 Records / Universal Music.

Courtesy of the distributor, Cream has 5 copies of Authentic on CD to give away. To try winning one, simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘LL’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 10 May. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

Based on the best-selling novel by Stephen Chbosky, The Perks Of Being A Wallflower is one of those rites-of-passage films that leaves you feeling good, despite its plot focusing mainly on the downs of growing up. A moving tale mostly of love, loss and fear, its bottom line message that friends will always be there to get you through the tough times makes the movie’s main theme one of hope. And, by golly, if that doesn’t perk you up, the darn-good soundtrack sure will. Featured are tracks by artists as diverse as David Bowie (Heroes), Dexy’s Midnight Runners (Come On Eileen), New Order (Temptation) and Sonic Youth (Teenage Riot). Plus there are tracks by The Samples, Galaxie 500, The Innocence Mission, The Smiths (every shoe-gazer’s favourite), Cracker, XTC, the Cocteau Twins and Michael Brook rounding out one of the best soundtracks of late, albeit with a retro bent.

Courtesy of Warner Music, Cream has 5 packs of The Perks Of Being A Wallflower soundtrack CD and the film on DVD to give away. To try winning a pack, simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘Perks’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 10 May. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

A young homicide psychologist-come-detective, the titular Alex Cross, meets his match in the spookily named serial killer, Picasso, with the pair facing off in a high-stakes game of cat-and-mouse. But when the mission gets personal, Cross is pushed to the edge of his moral and psychological limits.

The story takes Cross back to his origins as a Detroit police detective as he works with his partner, Tommy Kane. The two work with detective Monica Ashe in the chase for the serial murderer. Picasso’s ultimate target is Detroit-based multi-national Giles Mercier, but what appears as obvious, is anything but, as Cross has to try to get into a killer’s head to anticipate what could be next and to check the violent urges that Picasso has brought out in him.

Stars Tyler Perry, Ed Burns, Matthew Fox and Jean Reno. 

Courtesy of Universal Sony, Cream has 5 Blu-rays and 5 DVDs of Alex Cross to give away. To try winning one, email your name, address, your choice of DVD or Blu-ray and the Subject heading ‘Alex’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 3 May. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

If you were around in the ’90s, you’d have noticed that music took two prominent diverging paths: one leading into the garages of grunge; the other up the steps into smoke-filled, laser-lighted club culture. Ministry Of Sound Anthems: ’90s deals explicitly with the latter.

The three-disc set kicks off with Corona’s Rhythm Of The Night, melding into more infectious club anthems like Haddaway’s What Is Love and Urban Cookie Collective’s The Secret, and deeper bass grooves like Mousse T’s Horny (one of the first dance tracks to use the word ‘internet’!) and Everything But The Girl’s Missing, as well as once-were-ubiquitous house tunes such as Strike’s U Sure Do and CeCe Peniston’s Finally.

Packed with some 60 tracks, including club classics by Deee-Lite, Madison Avenue, Armand Van Helden, Ultra Nate, Adamski (feat. Seal) right through to even the more reputable likes of The Shamen, The Prodigy, Underworld and Run-DMC, this is an essential trip down dance music memory lane.

Courtesy of Ministry Of Sound, Cream has 10 copies of the triple-disc set Anthems ’90s to give away. To try winning one, simply email your name, address, the Subject heading ‘90s’ and the answer to this sticky-beak question: what were you doing in 1999? Email your details and answer to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 26 April. And remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks!

Stephen King’s ‘It’ has got nothing on this clown! ‘Stitches’ is the nickname given to children’s party clown, Richard Grindle (British comedic actor Ross Noble). The clown is probably at the lowest of lows in his entertainment career, so low that he can’t even be bothered taking his costume off when making out with the ladies; smokes when he’s in front of the kids; and delivers just about every magic ‘trick’ with a deadpan tone.

Speaking of dead, one afternoon, when one kid ties his shoelaces together, Stitches falls on his face… well, onto a butcher knife, actually, and instantly dies. The kid, of course, has to live with this horrific memory for the rest of his teen years, until, that is, he turns 20, when Stitches comes back from the dead to turn his coming-of-age party into hell.

The blood and gore in this film is quite possibly the most over-the-top witnessed in a horror flick – even your OTT B-grade ones. The blood is ketchup red; the gore consisting of plastic looking bits that look like having come from a Royal Show bag. Imagine a scene where Stitches takes the intestines of one of his victims and twists them into doggy-shaped balloons and you know what to expect from the rest of this uber-tacky flick (and we mean that in a good way).

Stitches is as hilarious a zombie movie as you’d find – akin to the likes of Shaun Of The Dead and Zombieland.

Courtesy of Anchor Bay Entertainment, Cream has 6 copies of Stitches to give away. To try winning one simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘Stitches’ to cream@pobox.com no later than 5pm, Friday 19 April. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.

Based on the 2010 bestselling book by Isaac Marion, Warm Bodies is a romantic comedy with a twist. Juliet (Australia’s own Teresa Palmer) is a human girl living in a post-apocalyptic world surrounded by the undead. When Julie is rescued by a young spunky ‘R’ played by Nicholas Hoult, a zombie who craves love more than brains, their relationship blossoms, and their romance sets in motion events that may start to transform their entire world. The film also stars John Malkovich and Dave Franco and is a must-see for lovers of romance, comedy, irony and a touch of gore!

View the trailer for Warm Bodies here.

Courtesy of Icon Films, Cream has 10 in-season double passes to give away to Warm Bodies, which opens in cinemas April 11. To try winning a double pass simply email your name, address and the Subject heading ‘Warm Bodies’ to cream@pobox.com no later than Thursday 11 April. Winner’s passes will be mailed out the very next day. Remember, you can enter as many times as you like but only one entry per day, thanks.