Satisfying and somewhat effective mystery-thriller. It's another 1980s-era movie that's not entirely special but kept my attention throughout. Also fun to see Christopher Lloyd in a film early in his career (though had been on Taxi for a couple years before this release). **3.25/5**
Who is killing the women in Marianna Hill's therapy group? Is it the creepy psychiatrist Klaus Kinski? His troubled yet cute daughter Donna Wilkes (who has a brief nude scene that I had been dreaming about since McLean Stevenson's forgotten sitcom "Hello Larry")? Marianna's grinning ex-husband Craig Wasson? What about a young Christopher Lloyd, the bitter handyman? Or even the even younger looking detective Joe Regalbuto? Hill plays an advice columnist who is having more problems than a week's worth of Ann Landers letters. She is receiving death threats, and someone is killing the women in her group with a large pair of scissors. The killer, whom I figured out right away, wears a fedora and coat, a striking silhouette in the un-scary killing scenes. Hill is also messing around with the chain smoking Kinski, resulting in a sex scene I could have gone all my life without seeing. Kinski is sleeping with a stripper/patient, and he, uh, "analyzes her feelings" against a hot water heater, resulting in another sex scene I could have gone my whole life without seeing. The finale takes place in Hill's newspaper office, as the film makers drag the proceedings out by assembling all of the suspects together, like an Agatha Christie novel, except with shootings and stabbings instead of a parlor full of upper class Brits and a brilliant detective. Filmed and released in 1980, this has all the makings of a slasher film. The few killings here are not all that gory, but violent. The name cast try their best. Paulsen's direction is void of suspense as he hopes his mediocre script will carry the film. Instead, it becomes gimmicky and silly, but trudges along like this is Shakespeare. Between the awful synth score (the scissors have their own theme when they appear) and Kinski's overbaked performance, a viewer must take this with a grain of salt. I cannot recommend this.
Set in the South just after the US Civil War, Laurel Sommersby is just managing to work the farm without her husband, believed killed in battle. By all accounts, Jack Sommersby was not a pleasant man, thus when he suddenly returns, Laurel has mixed emotions. It appears that Jack has changed a great deal, leading some people to believe that this is not actually Jack but an imposter. Laurel herself is unsure, but willing to take the man into her home, and perhaps later into her heart.
A successful mod photographer in London whose world is bounded by fashion, pop music, marijuana, and easy sex, feels his life is boring and despairing. But in the course of a single day he unknowingly captures a death on film.
Threats from sinister foreign nationals aren't the only thing to fear. Bedraggled college professor Michael Faraday has been vexed (and increasingly paranoid) since his wife's accidental death in a botched FBI operation. But all that takes a backseat when a seemingly all-American couple set up house next door.
When Nina and her high school friends receive eerie text messages declaring that they will all die within three days, they dismiss it as a hokey prank - until one by one, the pals start turning up dead in the alpine countryside. With the cops stymied, Nina and her remaining friends must scour their past for clues to identify the madman before he kills them all.
Sophie Jacobs is going through the most difficult time of her life. Now, she just has to find out if it's real.
When an unsuspecting town newcomer is drawn to local blood fiends, the Frog brothers and other unlikely heroes gear up to rescue him.
Singapore Sling is chasing after Laura, a romantic memory from his past. One night he finds himself in a mysterious villa, watching two women bury a body. He falls into their trap and, in an atmosphere of isolation and decadence, the trio act out insane pleasure games and a ritual of blood and murder.
Greedy diamond mine owner Eli Snedeker, resentful that his ex-foreman John Gamble stopped him from taking over kindly, but drunken, mine owner Roger Smythe's mine just as he was about to strike it rich, kills Smythe and blames it on Gamble. Grabbing the diamonds, Gamble flees Africa to England where he changes his name and begins a new life. What he hasn't counted on, though, is meeting and falling in love with Smythe's daughter Katherine, who falls in love with him but can't marry him until she can deal with her hatred of John Gamble, the man she believes killed her father.
Three teens who rent a cursed VHS and are pulled into an ’80s slasher movie that threatens to trap them forever.
A U.S. Senator is spirited away to a secret New Mexico medical lab after a serious car crash. His injuries are completely healed by a secret organization that has developed advanced medical technology. What does the organization want in exchange for saving his life? Meanwhile, a reporter who witnessed the accident decides to investigate the senator's disappearance.
Prot is a patient at a mental hospital who claims to be from a far away planet. His psychiatrist tries to help him, only to begin to doubt his own explanations.