Robert Tapert Movies

Evil Dead director Sam Raimi takes the helm for this "spook-a-blast" shocker about an ambitious L.A. loan officer who incurs the wrath of a malevolent gypsy by refusing to grant her an extension on her home loan. Determined to impress her boss and get a much-needed promotion at work, Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) lays down the law when mysterious Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) literally comes begging for mercy at her feet. In retaliation for being publicly shamed, Mrs. Ganush places the dreaded curse of the Lamia on her unfortunate target, transforming Christine's life into a waking nightmare. Her skeptical boyfriend, Clay (Justin Long), casually brushing off her disturbing encounters as mere coincidence, Christine attempts to escape eternal damnation by seeking out the aid of seer Rham Jas (Dileep Rao ). But Christine's time is fast running out, and unless she's able to break the curse, she'll be tormented by a demon for three days before literally being dragged to hell. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A young woman attempts to cure her phobia of the boogeyman by checking herself into a mental health facility, only to realize too little too late that she is now helplessly trapped with her own greatest fear. Editor-turned-director Jeff Betancourt takes the helm for this Ghost House Pictures shocker scripted by Brian Sieve and starring Tobin Bell, Danielle Savre, David Gallagher, Michael Graziadei, and Mae Whitman. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A group of aspiring musicians working as cooks at an institute for the criminally insane must fight for their lives when a violent thunderstorm traps them in the asylum with some of the most disturbed and deranged criminals ever committed. Spanish director Daniel Calparsoro helms a screenplay penned by The Brigands of Rattleborge scribe S. Craig Zahler. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

A woman who joins the undead against her will seeks vengeance against the ghouls who transformed her in this thriller. Sadie Blake (Lucy Liu) is a journalist who becomes acquainted with a group of beautiful but doomstruck partiers while following a story, led by the charismatic Bishop (James D'Arcy). While Sadie is taken with Bishop's good looks and sinister charm, she senses there's something dangerous about him, but it's not until she wakes up in the city morgue that she learns his secret -- Bishop is a vampire, and Sadie has joined his underlings as one of the undead. Angry and betrayed, Sadie is determined to stop Bishop and his compatriots, and she prowls the city with bow and arrow, ready to stake them from a distance when she spies them. Sadie finds an unlikely ally in her crusade in Detective Rawlins (Michael Chiklis), a police investigator whose daughter was transformed into a night creature by Bishop. However, Sadie is finding it increasingly difficult to resist her growing thirst for the blood of the living, becoming the sort of being she has grown to hate. Also featuring Carla Gugino, Robert Forster, and Nick Lachey, Rise: Blood Hunter received its world premiere with a special midnight screening at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

Japanese horror specialist Takashi Shimizu returns to the mythology that terrified audiences the world over with this terror-inducing sequel to the hit 2004 frightener. When a cursed Tokyo home is burned to the ground, the baneful spirit once confined within its walls is suddenly unleased to terrorize anyone and everyone who crosses its dark path. Original producers Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Taka Ichise return to help Shimizu realize his hair-raising vision with this tale that finds Karen's (Sarah Michelle Gellar) sister, Aubrey (Amber Tamblyn), teaming with spellbound journalist Eason (Edison Chen) to investigate the spectral mystery. Meanwhile, the ghostly grip of Toshio (Oga Tanaka) and Kayako (Takako Fuji) tightens on a Chicago housewife (Jennifer Beals) halfway across the globe. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

This American remake of director Takashi Shimizu's popular Japanese movie franchise The Grudge puts Buffy the Vampire Slayer alumna Sarah Michelle Gellar back into the line of supernatural fire. When Karen (Gellar), an American student working with a Japanese health center for college credit, comes across a mysterious curse, she quickly finds herself embroiled in a fight for her own sanity, and, ultimately, her very survival. Known as a "grudge," the curse was born inside of a house after its inhabitants died while consumed by rage -- according to legend, the curse touches all who come into contact with it, and will torment those unlucky individuals until they, too, become part of the grudge . Each time the curse finds a new victim, it is, in a sense, reborn, and will continue on its path unless Karen can free herself from its control over her. This version of The Grudge is also directed by Shimizu, and features Jason Behr, Clea DuVall, Kadee Strickland, William Mapother, and Bill Pullman in supporting roles. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

In the concluding episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, Xena (Lucy Lawless) has agreed to the terms of battle set down by evil samurai ghost Yodoshi. In other words, she allows herself to be killed so that she can fight Yodoshi over the souls of some 40,000 murdered Japanese. The grieving Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) races against time to revive Xena by putting her ashes in a magic spring before the next sunset. Only one problem: Even if she manages to defeat Yodoshi, Xena must remain dead in order to undo the samurai's past evil. This episode's climactic disclaimer advises the viewer to hold out hope for a happier ending in the future. We're still waiting. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) heads off to the North African land of Poteidaia, there to rescue her kidnapped niece, Sarah (Tandie Wright), from the warlord Gurkhan (Calvin Tuteao). Unfortunately, Gurkhan is something of an archaic Saddam Hussein: Not only has he managed to elude everyone who's ever tried to nab him, but no one is certain what he looks like, or even if those who claim to be Gurkhan are telling the truth. Figuring that the cards are stacked against Gabrielle, Xena (Lucy Lawless) slips her a mickey and attempts to track down Gurkhan herself. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Xena (Lucy Lawless) squares off against the Olympian gods in a battle to the death, with the survival of both sides in the balance. At the same time, Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) swears to avenge the death of Joxer (Ted Raimi) at the hands of Xena's daughter, Eve, and never mind that Eve has cast off her evil former identity as Livia, the Bitch of Rome. And Gabrielle's own departed daughter, Hope, makes an appearance -- in a manner of speaking. This was the final episode of Xena: Warrior Princess' fifth season. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Picking up where season five of Xena: Warrior Princess left off, season six begins with Xena (Lucy Lawless) handily defeating the combined forces of the Olympian Gods, who had hoped to forestall their prophesied demise by killing both Xena and her reformed warrior-princess daughter, Eve (Adrienne Wilkinson). The end of Olympia left but a few survivors, among them Xena's old nemesis Ares (Kevin Smith), the God of War -- now rather comically reduced to pathetic mortal-hood. Together with her traveling companion, Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), and the ladies' new cohort, Virgil (William Gregory Lee), the son of their late friend Joxer, Xena embarks upon a whole new series of globetrotting adventures, taking her to Africa and to the Land of Norse, where she finds herself smack-dab in a Wagnerian "Ring Cycle" (mostly of her own making). Xena also does her best to avoid the prognostications of the Heavens Above that she is next in line to the Throne of Hell upon the "retirement" of reigning demon Mephistopheles. Occasionally digressing from the standard Xena format, a handful of episodes were set in the Present -- that is, the 21st century A.D. One of these was a satirical spoof of the old radio and TV series You Are There, while others dealt with the misadventures of Xena's contemporary fans and the familiar cast members' modern-day, lookalike descendants. The season ends with a two-parter set in faraway Japan, where Xena is voluntarily slain so that she may do battle in the Afterlife with the ghost of a malevolent samurai. Gabrielle's efforts to revive Xena, so often so successful in the past, come a cropper this time, and it looks as though Xena: Warrior Princess is definitely, permanently over and done with. However, hope is held out that a sequel or a spin-off may still be in the works, so stay tuned. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

For all intents and purposes, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys had run its course by the end of season five. Even so, the producers wanted to generate a larger syndication package, thus the program was renewed for a sixth season -- consisting of a whole eight episodes. With Hercules' traveling companion Iolaus (Michael Hurst) having returned from the dead at the end of the previous season, there is no reason for Hercules (Kevin Sorbo) not to persist in his mission to right wrongs and champion noble causes during his handful of remaining journeys. Again wandering far afield from his native Greece, the mighty muscleman finds himself in ancient Dacia (a.k.a. Transylvania) for a too-close encounter with the infamous Vlad the Impaler, and in Egypt, where Hercules saves Queen Nefertiti from an assassination attempt. Closer to home, Hercules attempts to aid King Oedipus of Crete to regain his throne from the usurping Creon and even prevents a holdup at the First Bank of Greece in Thracia. The climactic episode finds Hercules' immortal father, Zeus (formerly played by Anthony Quinn and Roy Dotrice, now enacted by Charles Keating), attempting to patch up his differences with his wife, Hera (Meg Foster), whose jealousy toward Zeus's half-human son Herc served as motivation for the entire series. As had occurred in virtually every previous episode of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, the 111th and final installment ends with a humorous "disclaimer," assuring the viewers that nobody was really hurt -- not even gods, demigods, or monsters -- throughout the entire six-year run, though Ancient Mythology itself was given something of a beating! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

In the first of several Xena episodes set in India, Xena (Lucy Lawless) and Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor) are forced to seek shelter from bad weather in a mountain cave. Here they meet the mysterious mystic Aidan (Jeremy Roberts), who teaches the pliable Gabrielle the art of serene meditation. Although Gabrielle quickly succumbs to Aidan's message, Xena realizes that their new acquaintance is a false guru who is siphoning Gabby's essential goodness for his own wicked purposes. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

It sure looked like curtains for Xena: Warrior Princess at the end of the series' fourth season, what with both Xena (Lucy Lawless) and her traveling companion, Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), being crucified by the Romans, the fulfillment of a prophecy by the evil shamaness Alti (Claire Stansfield). But given the amazing recuperative power of our heroines, both of whom had spectacularly arisen from the dead on previous occasions, it came as no surprise during season five that reports of their permanent demise were highly exaggerated. But though Xena and Gabrielle are eventually restored to the land of the living, they still have their share of trials and tribulations. Impregnated under mysterious circumstances, Xena gives birth to a daughter named Eve, an "immaculate conception" tied in with Gabrielle's devotion to the martyred prophet Eli (Tim Omundson). It soon develops that Eve has been targeted for extermination by the Olympian Gods, the result of a prophecy that the girl's birth would be the beginning of the end of the Gods' rule over Earth. As for Gabrielle (Renee O'Connor), she is afforded the opportunity to ascend to the throne of Queen of the Amazons -- but this honor may require her to inflict heavy and horrible punishment upon her old friend Joxer (Ted Raimi). Joxer truly becomes "old" rather suddenly two-thirds of the way through the fifth season -- in fact, in one fell swoop 25 years pass by, during which both Xena and Gabrielle are in a state of suspended animation, frozen in a block of ice. Upon thawing out, the ladies discover that their old adversary Ares (Kevin Smith), God of War, has a powerful new ally: Fierce female warrior Livia, "The Bitch of Rome." Xena is disheartened to learn that Livia is none other than her own, grown-up daughter Eve (Adrienne Wilkinson), with whom she may be forced into mortal combat for the good of humankind. As in past years, season five bade goodbye to some familiar characters while introducing new ones. The most significant farewell was that of Joxer, who dies at Livia/Eve's hands. But the spirit of Joxer lives on, figuratively speaking, in the form of his stalwart son, Virgil (William Gregory Lee). Also in the tradition of previous seasons, the fifth-year run of Xena: Warrior Princess ended with a cliffhanger. This time around, Xena engaged in hand-to-hand combat against the Olympian Gods, with the fate of all the combatants remaining in the balance until the beginning of season six. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide