Monty Python: Almost The Truth – The Lawyer’s Cut (Cert 15, 465 mins, Eagle Media) **** Starring: John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first broadcast of Monty Python’s Flying Circus on BBC television, this six-part series interviews all of the surviving members of the comedy troupe to fondly recall the roots of a programme that changed the course of British comedy.

Archive material from the late Graham Chapman is complemented by interviews with fellow comedians and actors who have been greatly influenced by Monty Python, including Dan Aykroyd, Russell Brand, Eddie Izzard, Phill Jupitus, Steven Merchant and Simon Pegg.

The DVD also includes Python clas- sics such as The Parrot Sketch, Spanish Inquisition, The Fish Slapping Dance, Ministry Of Silly Walks, Lumberjack Song, The Cheese Shop and Spam.

Aliens Vs Monsters (Cert PG, 90 mins, Paramount Home Entertainment) **** Featuring the voices of: Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Seth Rogen, Rainn Wilson, Kiefer Sutherland.

Monsters Vs Aliens is a blast from its eye-popping start to uproarious finish, peppered with cute visual gags.

The script borrows heavily from The Incredibles, with nods to Godzilla and countless B-movies, but there are enough flashes of invention here and a smattering of heartfelt emotion to bring a tear to the eye.

If Witherspoon’s heroine is the emotional heart of the story, Laurie, Arnett and Rogen share the giggles, the latter in fine form as the brainless gloop who thinks he has found a soulmate in a lime-green jelly full of pineapple chunks.

Drag Me To Hell (Cert 15, 95 mins, Lionsgate Films Home Entertainment (UK) Ltd) *** Starring: Alison Lohman, Justin Long, Lorna Raver, Dileep Rao, Adriana Barraza.

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi returns to tongue-in-cheek horror with this queasy conflation of gore and dark humour.

You’re more likely to cackle or recoil in disgust than scream, because its violence is exaggerated and cartoonish. Lohman screams convincingly while Raver is stomach-churningly repulsive amid the hocus pocus, including a possessed, talking goat. Raimi directs with brio and an impish grin.