John Vulich Movies
- 2005
- R
- Add Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis to QueueAdd Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis to top of Queue
A pair of orphaned teens experience an unexpected reunion with their parents in this fourth installment of the long-running Return of the Living Dead franchise. After a traffic accident kills his folks, high-school senior Julian (John Keefe) leads a more or less typical suburban life. Sure, he's a little depressed, and sure, his brother, Jake (Alexandru Geoana), has a problem with matches. But otherwise everything is business as usual. All of that changes when their friend Zeke (Elvin Dandel) is injured in a dirt-bike accident and rushed to the hospital. Although the authorities claim Zeke is dead, he's actually carted off to a secret laboratory by the evil Hybratech corporation, whose scientists plan to experiment on him with a chemical that can reanimate the dead. Unfortunately for Julian and Jake, their uncle Charles (Peter Coyote) is one of the bad guys -- and he's not above using members of his own family as test subjects. With a group of friends in tow, the boys must infiltrate Hybratech's lab, find Zeke, and fend off a horde of angry zombies. Filmed back to back in Romania and Ukraine with Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave, Return of the Living Dead 4: Necropolis premiered on the SciFi Channel cable network before receiving a DVD release. Both films were directed by Ellory Elkayem, who previously helmed Eight Legged Freaks. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Aimee Lynn Chadwick, Cory C. Hardrict, (more)
Would you pay money to journey into the mind of the star of Con Air, The Killing Fields, and In The Line of Fire? Puppeteer Craig Schwartz (John Cusack) is having money problems, so he takes a temporary job as a file clerk on the seventh-and-a-half floor of a large office building. One day, while rummaging behind a cabinet, he finds a small door that leads to the center of the mind of actor John Malkovich (played by, you guessed it, John Malkovich). Craig discovers that entering the portal allows him to become John Malkovich for a brief spell, and in time he and his beautiful but aloof co-worker Maxine (Catherine Keener) get the bright idea to charge admission for the privilege of spending 15 minutes inside the head of a well-known actor. Malkovich realizes that something strange is happening to him, but can do little to stop it, as strangers take over his mind for a quarter-hour at a time. Craig's wife, Lotte (Cameron Diaz), eventually takes a trip into Malkovich's psyche, and she soon finds herself in love with Maxine, with whom Malkovich has an affair; meanwhile, Maxine in time becomes infatuated with both Craig and Lotte, but only when they're inside Malkovich. Being John Malkovich marked the feature-length debut of director Spike Jonze, who previously made acclaimed music videos for Weezer, the Beastie Boys, and the Breeders, among others. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Cusack, Cameron Diaz, (more)
Marking the first collaboration between horror legends George A. Romero and Stephen King since 1982's Creepshow, this moody, atmospheric adaptation of King's novel was actually completed in 1991, but the highly-publicized bankruptcy of its distributor Orion Pictures in that same year nearly doomed The Dark Half to distribution limbo. King's story revolves around successful author Thad Beaumont (Timothy Hutton), whose popularity on the college circuit owes a great deal to the financial success of a series of violent pulp thrillers written under the pseudonym of "George Stark." When he decides to cast aside his disreputable alter-ego by "killing" Stark off in a mock ceremony, it precipitates a string of sadistic murders matching those in his pulp novels, which are discovered to be the work of Stark himself (also played by Hutton). Looking like a maniacal white-trash version of his counterpart, Stark is not so willing to quit the writing game -- even if it means coming after Thad's wife (Amy Madigan) and their baby. It's only a matter of time before suspicions turn to Thad, who is the only one who knows the real origins of his hideous twin. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Timothy Hutton, Amy Madigan, (more)
Makeup wizard Tom Savini's color remake of George A. Romero's 1968 classic follows the original almost shot-for-shot, so quality comparisons are somewhat pointless. The film was clearly made for younger viewers who refuse to watch black-and-white films, no matter how good they may be. The result is passable, but the very fact that the original was made 22 years before makes this version seem almost dated in its restraint. By the time of its release, Romero had already geometrically raised the gore quotient with Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985), so Savini's starting back at square one further lessened the impact of this pointless retread. If this version has anything to offer, it is Patricia Tallman's engaging lead performance as a gun-toting independent woman, one of this film's few elements not lifted wholesale from Romero. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tony Todd, Patricia Tallman, (more)
- 1989
In this tongue-in-cheek (and quite a few cheeks are shown) parody of the workout video craze, scream queen Linnea Quigley leads the audience through some healthy aerobic exercises -- while dressed in leather and chains. Later, at a slumber party, she leads her equally scantily dressed girlfriends in even more workouts while being watched by a homicidal party crasher. Later, on a jog through the neighborhood, she is pursued home by a gang of zombies -- whom she proceeds to lead through an aerobics class (but not without the obligatory shower scene!). All the while, clips from her numerous low-budget horror films are shown. ~ Brian Gusse, All Movie Guide
Day of the Dead, the third and concluding chapter in George Romero's zombie trilogy is the most distinctly 1950s-style science fiction version of the lot. Set in Florida, as the film begins the dead have taken over the world, outnumbering humans 400,000 to one. The handful of surviving humans have taken refuge in an underground missile silo and argue and yell at each other like players in a Rod Serling Twilight Zone episode. Among the survivors are Sarah (Lori Cardille) -- a scientist who is trying to reverse the process whereby the dead turn into flesh-eating, irrational zombies -- and Dr. Logan (Richard Liberty) -- an out-of-his-mind psychologist who wants to capture the zombies and turn them into domestic help. Things heat up when the military tries to take over the scientific experiments. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lori Cardille, Terry Alexander, (more)
