August is a good month for genre fans with a host of long-overdue back catalogue DVD releases on Region 1.

Screenwriter-director Nicholas Meyer's criminally neglected gem of a film Time After Time. In this ingenious thriller, it is late 19th Century England and we learn that writer H.G. Wells' (Malcolm McDowell) celebrated Time Machine wasn't fiction after all. Unsuspectingly inviting John Leslie Stevenson, alias Jack the Ripper (David Warner) to a dinner party, the author's Time Machine is used by Jack to avoid capture and flee his own time to take refuge in ours (well, circa 1979, anyway!).

Wells bravely sets out in pursuit, to hunt down the shrewd and brutal Ripper and take him back to the past. The Ripper, however, finds the chaos and violence of modern-day San Francisco to his liking "I'm home", he says. "Ninety years ago I was a freak. Now I'm an amateur!" What follows is an enthralling fusion of suspense thriller and love story (with Wells befriending and falling in love with an irresistible banker (Mary Steenburgen) who becomes his guide to the future).

Not given the Special edition treatment, unfortunately, nevertheless there is an excellent feature-length audio commentary with Malcolm McDowell and Nicholas Meyer offering superb insight into the production of the film. Time After Time is a great movie with enjoyably sly nods to George Pal's 1960's version of The Time Machine liberally thrown in and, through its truly inspired combination of creeping suspense and gentle romance, Time After Time manages a rare cinematic feat - to become a classic in two genres at once!

David Hughes