Jeff Levine Movies

Two brothers embark on a violent revenge mission and discover that long-standing rumors of occult experiments among the Nazis were in fact rooted in reality. Three years before the onset of World War II, the Third Reich contacted the Wollners -- a poverty-stricken family of German-Americans living in Town Creek, WV -- with a lucrative offer to host visiting scholar Professor Richard Wirth. Completely oblivious to the occult experiments that were being conducted by the Nazis and Professor Wirth, the Wollners accepted. That decision would haunt their family and their town for decades to come. Flash forward to 2007, when Victor Marshall (Dominic Purcell) vanishes into thin air while camping near Town Creek. Determined to discover the true fate of his missing brother, floundering 25-year-old Evan Marshall (Henry Cavill) searches for answers. Just when it seems that there are none to be found, Victor suddenly reappears with a claim that he was abducted and then staged a daring escape. He asks Evan to gather some guns, pack the boat, and return to Town Creek with him on a mission to exact justice on his kidnappers. Upon returning to Town Creek, the two brothers come face to face with a terrifying evil born of an unholy union between Hitler's Third Reich and forces beyond human comprehension. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Inspired by the frightening true-life tale of a family that moved into a converted funeral home and subsequently fell under supernatural attack, director Peter Cornwell's The Haunting in Connecticut follows the quest of a desperate mother to free her family from the grip of an evil beyond human comprehension. Sara (Virginia Madsen) and Peter Campbell (Martin Donovan) have just moved to Connecticut with their young son, Matt, when the young boy experiences a series of disturbing events that lead him to believe a malevolent force is attempting to take control of his family. Back when the home was still a funeral parlor, the original owner's clairvoyant assistant, Jonah, served as a gateway for restless spirits seeking to cross over into the physical realm. When Jonah returns to unleash a new kind of horror on the innocent family, Sara enlists the aid of enigmatic priest Popescu (Elias Koteas) in driving the evil out before it consumes her son's body and soul. At first it appears that Popescu has been successful in driving the spirits away, but then the terror becomes more intense than ever before. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Eva Longoria Parker, Paul Rudd, and Lake Bell star in first-time feature filmmaker Jeff Lowell's heavenly romantic comedy concerning a female psychic and a doubtful skeptic who find their fledgling love affair thwarted by the latter's recently deceased fiancée. Henry (Rudd) and Kate (Longoria Parker) were all prepared to live out their "happily ever after" when tragedy struck from out of nowhere and Kate was killed on their wedding day. In the aftermath of the accident, a devastated Paul reluctantly takes his sister's advice and pays a visit to local psychic Ashley (Bell). Now, despite the fact that he openly questions her ability to communicate with the dearly departed, Paul can't help but fall head over heels in love with Ashley. Despite the fact that the feelings are most certainly mutual, however, their growing relationship is threatened when Kate makes it her supernatural mission to sabotage the happy couple's fledgling relationship before it starts to get serious. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

An ex-con looking to start life anew with his loving fiancée resorts to extreme measures as a means of funding his lifelong dream in director Stewart Hendler's dark supernatural thriller. Max Truemont (Josh Holloway) has served his debt to society, and now he is ready to make a fresh start alongside his faithful fiancée, Roxanne (Sarah Wayne Callies). When the bank takes umbrage to Max's manslaughter conviction and refuses to approve his loan application, the desperate recidivist soon joins forces with a pair of shady associates to carry out what promises to be a lucrative kidnapping. Upon abducting the eight-year-old son of the richest woman in the state, Max, Roxanne, and their criminal collaborators travel to a secluded and abandoned summer camp to await further instruction. Now, as loyalties begin to shift, suspicions arise, and the deteriorating situation appears to go into a menacing downward spiral, Max gradually begins to suspect that their young hostage may not be quite as innocent as outward appearances suggest. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The director of such off-beat independent films as In the Soup, director Alexandre Rockwell once again teams with that film's star to deliver this Los Angeles-based comedy concerning superstition and intersecting lives. Things aren't looking so good for television clown Banana's (Steve Buscemi) career, and the fact that his estranged wife, Suzi (Jennifer Beals), has just been arrested for assaulting his girlfriend, Lily (Karyn Parsons), just serves to compound Banana's despair. Teaming with sidekick Binky (Peter Dinklage) to enlist the aid of bail-bondsman Mo (David Proval), Banana and Binky discover that Mo is currently negotiating the release of hip-hop mogul Lenny's (Daryl Mitchell) wife, Sandra (Rose Rollins). The hapless group soon teams to help Mo by finding a suitable kidney donor for the bail-bondsman's ailing son, and though they quickly happen across a drunk (Peter Stormare) who fits the bill, the trouble comes in keeping the prospect in the hospital. Doing their best to help Mo's son under increasingly chaotic circumstances, personal tensions flare as each character desperately tries to simultaneously battle their own inner demons. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The torturous production of the classic 1922 vampire film Nosferatu is recreated in this stylized account of director F.W. Murnau and his obsession with creating realistic horror by any means necessary -- even if those means include actual bloodletting. The film begins as Murnau (John Malkovich) is ready to take his unauthorized interpretation of the Bram Stoker tale on location in Czechoslovakia. There, the director has arranged for his cast and crew to live in the same castle in which they will shoot their parts, as they all wait for their co-star, Max Schreck (Willem Dafoe) -- Murnau's choice to play Count Orlok -- to arrive. Their leader has warned them that Schreck is a student of the Stanislovsky method of performance and will not respond to them out-of-character. Nothing, however, can prepare them for the real thing: when the actor arrives, he's already in full Gothic regalia, asserting that he is indeed a vampire. Schreck makes good on his claims by terrorizing the cast and crew, attacking Murnau's original cinematographer (Wolfgang Muller) and plucking bats out of the air for midnight snacks. Director E. Elias Merhige previously made his name with his experimental theater productions and with his horrific film school thesis, Begotten. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

This tense urban drama stars Nicolas Cage as Frank Pierce, a paramedic on the brink of physical and emotional collapse. Frank has worked for years in one of New York's most brutal neighborhoods, and the pressure of his job has taken its toll; plagued with self-doubt, he is haunted by the spirits of the people he couldn't save, and while he desperately wants to quit his job, outside forces won't let him walk away. Bringing Out the Dead brought director Martin Scorsese back to the streets of contemporary New York, one of his favorite locations, after three films set elsewhere: Kundun, Casino, and The Age of Innocence. The film also reunited Scorsese with screenwriter Paul Schrader, who scripted Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and The Last Temptation of Christ. The supporting cast includes Patricia Arquette as the daughter of a heart attack victim that Frank has fallen in love with, and John Goodman and Ving Rhames as two of Frank's fellow drivers. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Brian DePalma directed this taut thriller, set in Atlantic City, where a corrupt cop investigates a political assassination. Outside an Atlantic City arena-hotel-casino, a TV news reporter stands in a pre-hurricane storm to report on the heavyweight boxing match about to begin inside. A transition to the stadium interior focuses on Atlantic City homicide Detective Rick Santoro (Nicolas Cage), a father with a wife and son, yet also a dishonest cop who maintains a mistress and cheerfully accepts bribes. DePalma's Steadicam follows Santoro on a fast-paced tour of the stadium as the laughing, yelling detective travels stairs and hallways, talks to a gal with a between-rounds placard, visits the dressing room of champ Lincoln Tyler (Stan Shaw), rides down an escalator to squeeze money from a small-time hood, enters the arena of 14,000 fight fans, talks on his phone with his girlfriend and wife, and sits ringside next to his lifelong buddy, Navy Cmdr. Kevin Dunne (Gary Sinise). Behind Dunne, the U.S. Secretary of Defense Charles Kirkland (Joel Fabiani) is seated alongside billionaire casino owner Gilbert Powell (John Heard). As the fight gets underway, Dunne abandons his position protecting the defense chief to pursue a suspicious redhead. From his ringside vantage point, Santoro has a close view of the champ, curiously conscious despite taking a kayo punch. At that moment, an assassin fires at Kirkland. Santoro immediately concocts a good cover story for his pal (to explain why Dunne left his post protecting Kirkland). Just after the shooting, Dunne kills a Palestinian extremist, the apparent killer, and Santoro orders the stadium doors locked, hoping he can locate other suspects among the fleeing crowd. One such is Julia Costello (Carla Gugino), an injured woman in a blond wig who spoke with Kirkland seconds before the gunfire. After a video replay reveals the champ took a fall, going down to the floor from a punch that never touched him, Santoro becomes more curious and suspicious, comparing witness accounts, and he attempts to locate Julia, convinced she's the key to truth behind the assassination. As it all comes to a head, Santoro peels through successive layers of corruption, ultimately confronting himself in a self-examination of his own values. Filmed at Montreal's old Forum. ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

This fourth trip down Freddy Lane was the most successful at the box-office, but although it has some impressive visuals, it is mostly an empty film. Credit must go to the effects team for some fine work, but otherwise, this entry from the director of Cutthroat Island (Renny Harlin) is extremely weak. Roland Kincaid falls asleep and awakens in the Springwood junkyard, where his dog -- named "Jason" in a sad foreshadowing of the film's giggly tone -- pees fire on Freddy's grave. The pyro-urinary baptism causes Krueger (Robert Englund) to reassemble from bones outward in an admittedly impressive sequence. Predictably, Freddy guts Kincaid, then appears in Joey's waterbed as a naked pinup girl (Hope-Marie Carlton) before slicing him to ribbons. And so it goes. The film has a few interesting ideas kicking around, but no real identification points. This is a video game, not a movie, and the characters seem to exist only in order to move the film from one effects sequence to another. There is a lot to be said for special effects, and the ones here are extraordinary and vivid. However, the wonderfully grim mood and subtle performances of Chuck Russell's outstanding third entry in the series are gone, abandoned by Harlin in favor of a splashy, comic book approach which would, unfortunately, dominate the series' later installments. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi