Peter Wilds Movies
A few innocent women experience a nightmare before Christmas in this bloody thriller. Billy Lenz, a severely maladjusted child, finally snaps under years of brutal treatment by his family, killing and eating them in an explosion of violence on Christmas Eve. For years, the Lenz house stands vacant, but in time it's purchased and renovated as the new home for a college sorority. A few days before Christmas, a handful of sorority sisters -- Dana (Lacey Chabert), Melissa (Michelle Trachtenberg), Kelli (Katie Cassidy), and Heather (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) -- are enjoying a quiet evening with their house mother, Barbara MacHenry (Andrea Martin), exchanging gifts and swapping stories before heading home for holiday break. While Barbara remembers the story of Billy's crimes, the atmosphere is peaceful until the young women receive the first in a series of disturbing telephone calls. Before long, they learn that Billy has escaped after years in a mental institution, and has come back to the house where he grew up to once again spill blood for the Christmas season. Black Christmas is a remake of the 1974 horror film of the same name by director Bob Clark, who later made a less-threatening film about the Yuletide season, A Christmas Story; Andrea Martin, who plays the house mother, also appeared in the 1974 film as one of the sorority girls. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Katie Cassidy, Michelle Trachtenberg, (more)
- 1997
Adapted by John Robert Hoffman from his own play, the made-for-TV Northern Lights stars Diane Keaton as Roberta Blumstein, a high-strung New Yorker whose well-ordered lifestyle is set on its ear with the arrival of a child. No, not Roberta's child, but the son of her recently deceased brother Frank. The kid's name is Jack, and he is no more fond of Roberta than she is of him--at least, not at first. Gradually, however, the two lost souls come to find each other in the most unlikeliest of places: A quaint New England community that Roberta would under normal circumstances have never been caught dead in. Although the original play was a one-character monologue, the TV version features scores of eccentric and lovable supporting characters--among them one Joe Scarlotti, played by author Hoffman, and Ben Rubadue, portrayed by Maury Chaykin, the star of the Diane Keaton-directed theatrical feature Unstrung Heroes. Produced for the Disney Channel, Northern Lights was originally telecast on August 23, 1997. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
