Roy Ward Movies

Housed inside the grimy walls of a horrific New Zealand asylum there sits a serial killer waiting to be determined sane enough to stand trial. The mental hospital is run by the sinister Dr. Marlowe, who looks the other way when his thuggish orderlies occasionally rough up the inmates. Into this hellish place comes the cocky Dr. Karen Shoemaker, a psychiatrist famed for having made major breakthroughs with another murderer. Though Marlowe thinks that no one could reach Simon Cartwright, the killer, Shoemaker is determined to try, so, with Marlowe watching behind a two-way mirror, she begins the first of many chilling sessions with the unrepentant Simon. A horror film that draws some of its best bits from other slasher movies, while also adding a few interesting twists of its own, this directorial debut from New Zealand director Scott Reynolds follows the winding course of these sessions, presenting pieces from Simon's grim life and graphically gory murders via flashback. As time passes, Shoemaker comes to trust the placid-seeming Simon and asks that his shackles be removed. Shortly thereafter she learns that he hears voices urgently telling him to kill and kill again. Dr. Shoemaker must then work even harder to control her dangerous patient and her growing terror. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

To his credit, the highly prolific Dutch filmmaker Pim de la Parra doesn't just make his own style of films but helps other filmmakers create something. In this black-and-white film, he is listed as a co-producer, and a co-writer. The story concerns a bereft young man living in a bleak section of Amsterdam who was inexplicably left by his girlfriend and cannot reconcile himself to that fact. However, he has a number of raffish friends who involve him in adrenaline-junkie games like "chicken" racing to take his mind off his sorry state for a little while. Every now and then, new sections of the story are prefaced by humorous or baffling "Thou shalt" or "Thou Shalt Not"-type slogans. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide