‘Spartacus: Blood and Ashes’ by author J.M. Clements, the tie-in book to Stars’ epic swords-and-sandals series, hits bookshelves this week. To celebrate the release, we have a guest blog from the author himself here, but we also have three copies of the book to give away courtesy of the fine folks at Titan Books!


Some legends are written in blood.

In the arena blood and death are primetime entertainment. But not all battles are fought upon the sands…





To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: Which actor plays Batiatus in the TV series Spartacus: Blood and Sand?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Competition ends 3rd February 2012.)

Clerks and Jay & Silent Bob writer/director/star Kevin Smith’s latest stand-up comedy/Q&A extravaganza hits DVD on 30th January 2012, and to celebrate, we have a copy of the DVD to give away to one lucky reader!

Following the huge success of fan favourites “An Evening With Kevin Smith” and “An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder”, the acclaimed filmmaker, writer, actor and raconteur responsible for such diverse movies as “Red State”, “Cop Out”, “Zack And Miri Make A Porno” and “Clerks II” releases his first new stand-up DVD in five years in the form of Too Fat For 40.

Filmed on the evening of Kevin Smith’s 40th birthday before a crowd of rabid fans at the Count Basie Theatre in his home town on Red Bank, New Jersey, this comedy special comes to DVD on 23rd January 2012 (coinciding with the release of “Red State” on DVD and Blu-ray) as a two-disc edition featuring the full, uncut and unexpurgated three-and-a-half-hour version of Smith’s performance and including a Bonus DVD loaded with extra features including additional encore Q&A footage and a look behind the scenes.





To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: Kevin Smith had a small role in which Brit movie from Kidulthood director Noel Clarke?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Competition ends 3rd February 2012.)

Classic British comedy Go To Blazes celebrates its 50th Anniversary by hitting DVD for the first time, and to celebrate, StudioCanal to offer three lucky readers a copy of the DVD.

Three charming but foolhardy crooks have the idea to use a fire engine as the perfect getaway vehicle for their new scheme. Featuring an all-star cast that includes Maggie Smith, Robert Morley, Dennis Price, Dave King, Derek Nimmo, Thora Hird and Will Hay, GO TO BLAZES is a lost gem of British Comedy.

The London Comedy Film Festival will be giving a special screening at the BFI on January 29th, the day before its first ever release on DVD.





To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include your full name and mailing address. That’s it!

The three lucky winners will be selected at random from an imaginary hat and bag themselves a copy of the film on DVD.


(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Competition ends 3rd February 2012.)

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, the time of the year when coupled-up lovers settle down for cosy dinners and romantic movies, while singletons sit around on Facebook praying for the fiery destruction of Hallmark Cards and wishing a painful death upon the world. Why not have the best of both worlds this year with apocalyptic sci-fi romance Perfect Sense, starring Ewan McGregor and Eva Green?

A new virus is spreading throughout the globe, slowly stripping people of their five senses one at a time and beginning with the sense of smell. Deep feelings of grief, depression and rage briefly precede each sense loss, causing communities to spiral into chaos as the authorities struggle to cope with the situation. Witnessing these events are Michael (McGregor), the head chef at a swanky Glasgow restaurant, and Susan (Green), an aloof epidemiologist who is conducting research into the outbreak. Following a chance encounter, Michael and Susan embark on an affair that sees them experiencing new and unforeseen depths of feeling and moments of pure emotional connection. But is their passion really based on love or is it that, with the world falling apart around them, they have nothing else to hold on to but each other?

Perfect Sense hits DVD on 30th January 2012 courtesy of Arrow Films, and to celebrate the release, we have a poster signed by Ewan McGregor himself, plus a copy of the movie on DVD to give away to one lucky winner!

To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: Perfect Sense star Eva Green plays Morgan in which historical fantasy TV series?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Competition ends 31st January 2012.)

To celebrate the UK Double Play Blu-ray release of Studio Ghibli’s incredibly charming animated movie Whisper of the Heart (which we reviewed here) we are offering three lucky readers the chance to win a copy of the Blu-ray/DVD combo sets!

An endearing coming of age tale of adolescent angst, young love and self discovery, Yoshifumi Kondō’s Whisper of the Heart is a gorgeous movie well worth checking out, and StudioCanal’s Blu-ray/DVD looks phenomenal and comes with some fun extras, like an entire movie’s worth of storyboards, interviews and behind-the-scenes footage from the sound booth, a step-by-step look at Naohisa Inoue’s artwork coming to life, and more!


To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: Which Studio Ghibli movie was a reworking of The Little Mermaid story?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Competition ends 23rd January 2012.)

As you might know, Hello Games’ fantastic Joe Danger: Special Edition hit the Xbox Live Arcade this week. A wonderful and wacky blend of cartoony racing game, platformer and addictive high-score-topping stunt game, it’s an amazing title that you should definitely check out. Our review will be up very soon, but in the meantime, it being the season for giving and all, we have a few XBLA codes to give away to lucky readers!

To celebrate the festive season, the awesome folks at Hello Games have cooked up some Christmassy DLC for Joe Danger. Giving players access to a new Santa Danger suit (which causes it to snow when you wear it) and a four-wheel ATV for you to speed around in, the DLC adds not just a seasonal sprinkle of variety, but an extra layer of challenge and replayability to the gameplay. As Hello Games’ head honcho Sean Murray puts it, “I think of the Quadbike a bit like unlocking Luigi in Mario Galaxy. Suddenly the controls and handling are different, and every level has to be relearned and replayed. The ATV is faster for instance, but very bouncy.”

To make it even more enticing, the Santa DLC will be available to everyone for free on 21st December! It’s only available for a limited time and will disappear from the store after Christmas, though, so get it while you can! But we’ve got a great chance for you to snag it before anyone else and get the jump on your friends for that sneaky high score leaderboard advantage.

Thanks to the kind folks at Hello Games, we have a stack of codes to give away. First up, for the complete package grand prize, we have a copy of Joe Danger: Special Edition + the Santa DLC! And for those of you who’ve already picked up the game, we have two additional Santa DLC codes to give away.

To be in with a chance of winning, you can either drop us an email here and let us know which you’d rather win, or follow us on Twitter (@tempdistraction) and retweet either of our Joe Danger giveaway tweets.

Entries will be tossed in an imaginary Santa hat and the selected winners will get their codes Sunday afternoon, to give you a good few days head start on the DLC’s official release so you can play it before anyone else.

Best of luck!

Joe Danger: Special Edition is available on XBLA now, priced 1200 Microsoft Points.

The lights are up in the shopping centres! The ads are on the telly! The Christmas gift guides are out! And it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas…

But if you’re looking for an alternative to the traditional Christmas films then take a look at the wonderfully off-beat Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (out now on DVD and Blu-ray), the REAL story of Santa Claus that will have everyone believing again…. whether you’ve been naughty or nice!

On the eve of Christmas a young boy sets out to discover the truth behind several strange goings on in his small isolated village. Why have all the reindeer been slaughtered? Who took all the hairdryers and radiators? And where have all the children gone? Seal the chimney, lock the doors, hide your children because the real Santa is coming to town.

So forget about the Christmas shopping and have a go at winning a copy of Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on DVD along with some chocolate treats to enjoy while you watch, courtesy of Icon Home Entertainment.

We have a single DVD and some festive chocolatey treats to give away to one lucky winner.


To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: In Christmas horror movie classic Gremlins, which current America’s Got Talent judge provided the voice of adorable Mogwai critter Gizmo?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Entrants must be 15 or over. Competition ends 11th December 2011.)

The UK’s number one specialist horror genre magazine The Dark Side has just turned 21 years old and to celebrate this momentous anniversary in style, along with the help and support of sponsors Network DVD, The Dark Side is offering all its readers, both old and new, the chance to enjoy the magazine’s first four rare collectors’ editions totally free of charge at www.thedarksidemagazine.com. No longer available to buy as back issues, these archive volumes have been recreated as brand new digital editions allowing readers to take a chilling journey down the dark alleyways of horror history.

If you want to catch up with The Dark Side now then do visit their website for print and digital subscriptions but we’re offering one lucky reader a chance to win a digital subscription for a whole year!


To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name, mailing address and primary email address (Make sure it’s the one you check most regularly – we’ll need to know where to send your digital magazine issues).
2. That’s it! No hoop-jumping, no riddles, no trivia, just a good old-fashioned ‘names in a hat’ competition.

(Competition ends 11th December 2011.)

Coinciding with its 40th anniversary and with the forthcoming remake, director Sam Peckinpah’s notorious thriller Straw Dogs has been carefully restored and remastered for release on two-disc DVD and for the first time ever as a features-packed Special Edition Blu-ray on 24th October 2011.

Discover more about the original in a series of articles running on http://www.totalfanhub.com/straw-dogs/ which will include reactions to the remake, plus details of the screening of the original at The Barbican in London on 9th Nov.

And for your shelf we have copies of the Blu-ray to give away for two lucky winners.







To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: A remake of Straw Dogs is set to be released soon starring which former X-Men actor?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Entrants must be 18 or over. Competition ends 31st October 2011.)

To celebrate the 24th October UK DVD and Blu-ray release of Mother’s Day (Studiocanal), we are offering a fantastic original cinema poster and a copy of the film on Blu-ray.

Rebecca De Mornay (Wedding Crashers; Lords of Dogtown) heads a killer cast in Mother’s Day, in a role the makes her psychotic character from ‘The Hand That Rocks The Cradle’ look like Mother Theresa!

Loosely based on Charles Kaufman’s 1980 Troma classic, Mother’s Day is a nail-biting thriller that has been described as ‘intense’ (Dread Central) and ‘ a gruesome pleasure” (The Sun).


To be in with a chance of winning, simply email us here and include the following:

1. Your full name and mailing address.
2. The answer to the following: Rebecca De Mornay starred in which other psychotic mother movie?

(UK entrants only. One entry per household. Entrants must be 18 or over. Competition ends 31st October 2011.)