Jake Jacobs Movies
- 1999
Peter Schwabach directs this cross-cultural romantic comedy-drama. Comic book writer Matthew Field (Colin Firth) has an affair with Nimi Da Silva (Nia Long), a Nigerian exile who's looking for a husband. Her mother thinks that a better match would be the local community's black preacher (Ariyon Bakare). This film was screened in the 1999 London Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, Rovi
- Starring:
- Colin Firth, Nia Long, (more)
- 1993
A woman involved in a satanic cult (Olivia D'Abo) is looking for the devil's new bride. She takes a job as a nanny to find the victim. ~ John Bush, Rovi
- Starring:
- Olivia D'Abo, Marcy Walker, (more)
- 1992
In this action adventure, the mysterious Preacher, a "special forces" veteran, card sharp and ex-clergyman, is called to a town on the Texas-Mexico border to investigate a suspicious helicopter crash involving a Vietnam veteran pilot. His investigation reveals that the town is totally corrupt. Mayhem ensues, but justice somehow prevails. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
One girl gets involved with guys from rival kickbox gangs which can only lead to one thing, and that's a showdown. That's exactly what happens in this West Coast gang high-stakes kickfest. ~ Rovi
- Starring:
- Don "The Dragon" Wilson
- 1991
The Haunted is a Fox Network TV-movie purportedly based on eyewitness testimony. The story goes that in the mid-1980s, the Smurl family of Pittston, Pennsylvania began noticing something askew in their four-bedroom Victorian home. Apparently there are agents of Satan at work, bedeviling the family and smashing the crockery. None of the Smurls believes in ghosts--"until," as the ad copy for this film proclaims, "they have no choice." Since this film was shown on Fox, the "standards and practices" people were a wee more lax than they would have been on another network; hence the "Parental Discretion Advised" tag on the film's original telecast. The Haunted is some distance removed from believability, but stars Sally Kirkland and Jeffrey DeMunn seem to be having a high old time playing scared. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1991
Lou Diamond Phillips stars in this contrived but entertaining thriller (which he also wrote) as Mitchell Osgood, an aspiring writer who runs a Los Angeles bookstore. When a heartfelt book about his father Haing S. Ngor fails to win him a publishing deal, Osgood decides to write something more eye-catching -- a book about recently-released serial killer Albert Merrick Clancy Brown. The media beats him to it, so the ruthlessly ambitious Osgood decides to spur Merrick to commit more crimes, hiring him to work at the bookstore and playing cruel mind games in hopes of setting Merrick off. He does, but the results are quite different from what Osgood had anticipated. Phillips' performance is weak, and the screenplay is predictably bland, but the film remains worthwhile thanks to a terrific job by Brown as the killer. Brown has turned in a number of fine psycho performances, but he has rarely been better than he is here, building from understated diffidence to full-blown psychosis in expert fashion. Grace Zabriskie and Willard E. Pugh co-star with Cecilia Peck. ~ Robert Firsching, Rovi
- Starring:
- Clancy Brown, Cecilia Peck, (more)
- 1990
Mark Lenard, who played Mr. Spock's Vulcan-ambassador father Sarek on the original Star Trek, recreated the role in this Next Generation episode, which first aired May 19, 1990. Arriving on the Enterprise for an important diplomatic mission, Sarek surprises his hosts with his uncharacteristic mood swings. Even more perplexing is the fact that the Vulcan's appearance coincides with an outbreak of random violence amongst the crew. "Sarek" was scripted by Peter Beagle from a story by Mark Cushman and Jake Jacobs. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1990
Jake Jacobs, Chip Campbell and Michele McNeil star in the exceedingly unpleasant Driven to Kill. The title refers to the emotional state of a man who is bedeviled at every turn by punks and mobsters. He decides to get even, one tormentor at a time, in a most deadly fashion. The story's potential is undermined by director John Gazaran's funereal pacing. Numbering among the supporting players in Driven to Kill are the relatives of several prominent Hollywoodites. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1989
- R
- Add A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child to QueueAdd A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child to top of Queue
In the fifth installment in the Nightmare on Elm Street series, Alice (Lisa Wilcox) begins the film with the notion that she is safe after she vanquished the evil Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) by learning how to battle the dreamworld psychopath within her own unconscious mind. But somehow Freddy has survived, and Alice discovers that he's found a place where Alice can't protect herself when he taps into the dreams of her unborn child. Freddy is soon leaving a trail of destruction while the child is still in the womb, and he will become even more deadly when the child comes to term. Memorable moments include Freddy's attack on a comic book artist and his Hellish experiences when "the bastard son of a hundred maniacs" is locked in an insane asylum with a nun. A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child was followed by Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare, though Mr. Krueger popped up again in Wes Craven's New Nighmare. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
- Starring:
- Robert Englund, Lisa Wilcox, (more)
- 1989
Jessica heads to the baseball stadium to visit her nephew, up-and-coming ballplayer Johnny Eaton (Todd Bryant). Soon afterward, the team's new TV pre-game hostess is murdered, and a startled burglar is arrested for the crime. So what has this to do with Jessica? Well, it seems that the hapless burglar is nephew Johnny's best friend... ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- 1989
- R
The mayor of Midwood, California, Karen Wilton (Morgan Fairchild), is perplexed to discover that the mall she just ceremonially opened has become the favored hunting ground for a mass-murderer. The heroine of this would-be spoof is a young waitress (Kari Whitman). Could it be that the killer is really her dead boyfriend? ~ Clarke Fountain, Rovi
- Starring:
- Morgan Fairchild, Derek Rydall, (more)
- 1987
In this straight-to-video Las Vegas-set thriller, a choreographer's attempts to kick his drug habit and clean up his act are thwarted by Mafia-connected pushers, and dogged G-men. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi
