Paul Clemens

Adapted by Whitley Strieber from his book about his alleged contacts with aliens, Communion dramatizes a story all the more compelling for the author's insistence that it is true, complemented by Christopher Walken's enigmatic performance as Strieber. The film begins in October 1985, as Strieber is living in New York City with his wife Anne (Lindsay Crouse) and son Andrew (Joel Carlson). He is hunting for new book ideas without making much headway. He spends his days pacing around his apartment, thinking out loud or videotaping himself as he improvises bits of dialogue. It is soon decided that a vacation is in order, so, with their friends Alex (Andreas Katsulas) and Sara (Terri Hanauer), the Striebers head for their cabin in Upstate New York. In the middle of the night, an illumination descends on the cabin and surrounding forest, causing Strieber to wake up abruptly. In the semi-darkness of the cabin, he is able to make out a long face with narrow, tear-shaped eyes quietly observing him from a corner of the room. The next morning, he has forgotten -- or been made to forget -- the whole experience. He even shrugs off Alex's and Sarah's concern about "seeing lights" outside their bedroom window, claiming to have slept through the event. Back in New York, it becomes evident to Strieber and his family that something unusual did happen. He begins to have powerful hallucinations, and, after an inconclusive medical examination, he is encouraged by his wife to seek professional help from psychiatrist Janet Duffy (Frances Sternhagen). During hypnotic regression therapy, Strieber's lifelong contact with the "visitors" is brought to light, as well as the details of his more recent encounters. Still unable to accept these revelations, he returns to the cabin alone and finally communicates with the visitors, discovering that, although they are unable to reveal their true identity, their purpose may be to act as agents of personal transformation for himself and for others. An interesting and uneven film, Communion is bolstered considerably by Christopher Walken, whose role in the film, though appropriate for the subject matter, quickly transforms into a thesis on his own eccentricities as an actor. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide

In this deplorable Howard Avedis film masquerading as a horror flic, Dianne Stevens (Sybil Danning) is an English professor who seduces one of her students (Eric Brown) and then brings him into a plot hatched by herself and her husband (Andrew Prine) to get their hands on a few million that now belong to the husband's mother and grandmother. Before the first peg is in place, a masked nutcase starts killing off the cast of characters, perhaps with the thought of putting this vapid movie out of its misery and going home early. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

In this followup to the Season Six episode "Who Speaks for the Children", Quincy (Jack Klugman) continues his crusade to push forward the stalled "Orphan Drug Act" in congress, creating funding to develop curative drugs for rare diseases. The big problem is money, or lack of it: the major pharamaceutical companies don't want to invest in research that will benefit only a handful of consumers, while dedicated scientists like Dr. Styer (Joseph Campanella) are facing severe cutbacks. The situation becomes personal when Quincy befriends a young mother suffering from Myoclonus, a degenerative nerve disease that has already driven another of Styer's patients to suicide. Returning from "Who Speaks for the Children" are Michael Constantine as pharmaceutical activist Dr. Ciotti, and Paul Clemens as Ciotti's son Tony. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

This is a tragic tale of the slow degeneration of a cancer patient that is filled with pathos and sorrow. Buffy Koenig (Kathleen Beller) is terminally ill with cancer and for the two-hour running time, she goes through several surgical procedures, suffers all the devastating side effects of chemotherapy, and gets unrelentingly worse. Her doctor (Marsha Mason) has a certain amount of conflict herself, but that is nothing compared to the young patient's distraught parents (Ned Beatty and Susan Clark) or her grief-stricken boyfriend (Paul Clemens). ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

A middle-aged husband must choose between his wife and family, and the younger woman he is having an affair with in the made-for-TV movie. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide