Terry Donovan Movies

Held prisoner by a psychotic truck driver who has stopped taking his meds, a suicidal swindler uses her formidable skills as a grifter to turn the tables on her unstable captor in this satirical black comedy from first time feature filmmaker Kieran Galvin. Down on her luck con artist Liz (Nadia Townsend) was about to end it all when lonely truck driver Aiden (Bernard Curry) swept in and saved her from certain death. But Liz's nightmare is just beginning, because Aiden is convinced that she's the ex-wife who walked out on him years ago, and now he's eager to settle the score by holding her prisoner in his remote farmhouse. Now surrounded by vicious attack dogs and cut completely off from civilization, Liz must remember what it was that made her such a successful con-artist in the first place, and draw on those skills in order to gain the upper hand. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Dead Kids, aka Strange Behavior, is a creepy exercise from director Michael Laughlin--who conceived this as part one of an abortive "Strange Trilogy" which also included 1983's Strange Invaders. Although lensed in New Zealand, the film is set in a sleepy American town, in which a series of gory murders committed by local teenagers are linked to a twisted brainwashing scheme by a deranged behavioral psychologist (note irony please). Despite some humorous details (e.g. one killer dons a Tor Johnson mask) and a nostalgia for '50s pulp horrors (not to mention a fondness for splattery death scenes), the disparate plot elements don't come together as well as they should, failing to live up to the premise's potential for guilty chuckles or gasps of horror. Fiona Lewis is sexually menacing as the mad doc's assistant, but Louise Fletcher's wasted role may make viewers pine for Nurse Ratched. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide