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Wil Horneff
As another semester draws to a close at the University of Dreyskill, a simple game dreamt to help students avoid studying becomes a bloody battle for survival in this stalk-and-slash frightener from filmmaking duo Brian Hooks and Deon Taylor. Dreyskill may have a reputation as a prestigious private school, but a group of students known as "The Crew" are sick of studying for finals and looking to have a little fun. In order to pas the time, they create a game called "75." The rules of 75 are simple: the participant in the game calls a random telephone number and attempts to scare the party on the other end of the line for 75 seconds; should the recipient of the call laugh or hang up, the player loses, and the player with the best call emerges victorious. By the time exams are over, 75 has become a popular campus pastime among all the students, and one rich classmate invites the Crew to his massive mansion in the Colorado hills for a wild weekend of partying. But when one of the Crew accidentally calls the wrong person, the once-playful scares become all too real. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Brian Hooks, Antwon Tanner, (more)
- 2007
- PG13
An idealistic investigate reporter who is determined to start a family risks everything she has in order to help a twelve-year-old victim of the sex trade in director Brian Gurley's affecting drama. Abbey Fisher is a top tier reporter whose marriage to a driven Civil Rights attorney has failed to yield a family. When Abbey decides to heed the advice of a fertility specialist and takes a leave of absence that will allow her to start the family she has always wanted, the discovery that a rapidly growing sex trade has claimed the innocence of countless children causes her to take pause and re-evaluate her reasoning for bringing another child into such a callous world. Now, with the assistance of a kindly dance instructor named Eric Vandevere, Abbey is about to put aside her own needs to help a hardened, twelve-year-old former sex slave learn what it means to overcome her fears, trust, and be loved in a world where exploitation truly knows no boundaries. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robyn Lively, William McNamara, (more)
- 2005
After discovering that his mother was not killed by a drunken driver as he had always been led to believe, Princeton student Carnell Hall (Vicellous Shannon) begins suffering a variety of mysterious maladies. Though he wants nothing to do with Carnell, House (Hugh Laurie) is forced to take the boy's case because he owes Wilson (Robert Sean Leonard) money. Almost immediately, House concludes that Carnell has begun taking drugs--but as usual, the real reason for the boy's troubles lies elsewhere. "Elsewhere", by the way, is where House would rather be when his hyperjudgmental parents (Diane Baker, R. Lee Ermey) pay a visit. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Creatures of the night find new prey on the scariest night of the year in this horror story. It's Halloween night, and four friends -- Allison (Vanessa Horneff), Elliott (Wil Horneff), Trevor (Karl Jacob), and Brian (Sean Reid) -- are on a road trip en route to a friend's wedding when their car breaks down after running into something. Looking for help, the four happen upon the farmhouse of an elderly couple, Elvin (Richard Little) and May (Barbara Wilhide), which is located next to a huge barn. Elvin and May have already become lost in the darkness of the barn, and soon two of the lost travelers are suffering the same fate as they search for friendly strangers. However, while they can barely see a hand in front of their face, they discover they're not alone in the barn, which has become home to a huge swarm of bloodthirsty bats. The Roost is framed by an introduction and postscript from a television horror show host, played by Tom Noonan. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 2002
Law & Order rips another story from the headlines in the series' 13th-season opener. When a professor specializing in stem-cell research is murdered, the detectives at first suspect that the killer was a pro-life zealot. It soon develops that the actual target for extermination was the professor's wife (also murdered in the attack), who was raising money and public awareness for Muslim women's rights. Ultimately, the clues lead to a young Muslim extremist who calls himself Mousah Salim, but who is actually an American named Greg Landen (Wil Horneff). In prosecuting the case, the lawyers try to ferret out the motivation behind Landen's wild-eyed fanaticism, with surprising results. Fred Dalton Thompson joins the cast as new DA Arthur Branch. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Andy Yates (Wil Horneff) was born and raised in a farming community in rural Pennsylvania, where people know each other and value hard, honest work. Andy discovers that his seemingly conservative parents (Jeffrey DeMunn and Lisa Emery) have managed to hold on to the family farm through a secret source of income -- in addition to the food crops that have been their livelihood for generations, they're growing marijuana and selling it at a considerable profit. The Yateses are not the only family in the area raising pot in order to pay the bills, and in time the town sheriff (John Slattery) is visited by a DEA investigator (Mary McCormack) who is trying to ferret out the local drug growers. As Andy is forced to resolve his feelings about his parents' double life, the sheriff has to decide whether his greater loyalty lies with the law or with the friends and family he's known all his life. Harvest features a brief appearance by James Van Der Beek, who became a teen heartthrob with his roles in the film Varsity Blues and the TV series Dawson's Creek. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary McCormack, John Slattery, (more)
The unbreakable bond forged between a troubled boy and a gorilla forms the basis of this family-oriented children's adventure. Fourteen-year old Rick has become quite rebellious since his father abandoned them. Margaret Heller, his mother, is a behavioral scientist who studies communication with gorillas. She is finding it increasingly difficult to communicate with the sullen, isolated Rick. The story opens just as Rick, who had stolen his mother's van for a joyride, is released from jail. To punish him, Margaret forces him to clean out the animal research lab. Rick is especially loathe to clean out the gorilla cage. In that cage is a gorilla adept at sign language, Katie, whom Rick immediately despises. In time, he and Katie begin conversing, and the two become friends. But then Katie's legal owner, the cruel Gus Charnley, reclaims her and forces her to perform caged up in a carnival act. The degradation of his friend is more than Rick can handle, so he frees her and together they hit the road. Mayhem and adventure ensues until the two end up in court where Katie makes a touching plea on their behalf. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wil Horneff, Helen Shaver, (more)
- 1994
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Originally a television mini-series, this drama chronicles the painful and lively reminiscences of a 100 year old woman. Much of the story centers on her tumultuous marriage to a Civil War vet. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Diane Lane, Donald Sutherland, (more)
- 1994
This moving made-for-TV movie is a faithful rendition of Marjorie Kinan Rawling's timeless coming-of-age tale in which a boy living a hardscrabble life with his family in a Florida swamp must grow-up and face his responsibilities after he befriends an orphaned fawn. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Strauss, Jean Smart, (more)
A serial killer is transformed into a computer virus out to destroy more than your hard drive in this sci-fi thriller. Terry Munroe (Karen Allen), a single mother, is looking for a gift for her boss and visits a computer store, where one of the employees demonstrates a hand-held scanner than can transfer the information from her address book into a software program that will store the information on her PC. Unknown to Terry, one of the employees of the store is Karl Hochman (Ted Marcoux), known in the press as "The Address Book Killer," who likes to steal other people's address books and murder all the people listed within, including the book's owner. Terry accidentally leaves her book behind at the store, and Karl lifts it, but as he drives to her house to strike her off the list first, he is injured in a serious accident and taken to a hospital. While Karl is being given a CAT scan, lightning strikes the building and Karl is transformed into a series of electrical impulses that can travel as computer code from one system to another, or as current through power lines. Soon Terry begins to suspect something is wrong as her friends succumb to attacks by microwave ovens, hot-air blowers, and other household objects. Terry and her computer-savvy son, Josh (Wil Horneff), realize that they're at risk after Karl appears in Josh's virtual reality games; it's up to Bram Walker (Chris Mulkey), a brilliant hacker-turned-computer maintenance technician, to isolate and destroy the Karl virus before it can kill again. The film's soundtrack features such hip-hop stars as D-Nice and Too Short, Schoolly-D, Grandmaster Slice, and Kool Moe Dee. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Karen Allen, Chris Mulkey, (more)
- 1993
The D.A.'s office charges teenager Chris Pollit (Wil Horneff) as an adult in a murder case. The teen's lawyer, Helen Brolin (Maria Tucci), aims for a not-guilty plea by claiming that her client is "violently predisposed." Her argument: The killer was born with an extra Y chromosome, and thus is inherently unable to discern right from wrong. Broadway musical comedy favorite Helen Gallagher plays it straight as the killer's anguished foster mother. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
The Sandlot is sparsely narrated by the main character (now an adult) who occasionally drops in on the action to comment on events or help move the story along. Tom Guiry plays Scotty Smalls, the shy new kid on the block who wants to join the rowdy pickup baseball team that plays every day in the neighborhood sandlot. But he doesn't know how to catch a baseball, and his stepfather (Dennis Leary) is too busy to teach him. He tries out for the sandlot gang anyway, and though he isn't very good, it turns out he's lucky: there happen to be only eight of them, and nine makes a team. The summer passes blissfully as Scotty learns to play ball under the wing of Benny Rodriguez (Mike Vitar), the oldest and best player, as well as Ham, Squints, Repeat, and the rest of the kid-eccentrics. The skies darken, however, when Benny literally knocks the stuffing out of the team's only baseball, a sign of impending doom, or worse, bad luck. Wanting to set things right, Scotty returns home and "borrows" his stepfather's ball, which he promptly uses to hit his first home run, knocking the ball clear out of the sandlot into mean old Mr. Mertle (James Earl Jones)'s junkyard, home to Mertle's legendary guard dog The Beast. Scotty admits that he took the ball without asking, and he naively explains that his stepfather will want it back since it had a woman's name written on it: some lady named Babe Ruth. Horror-stricken, the sandlot gang mobilizes to fetch the autographed ball from the clutches of The Beast, building a series of mechanical ball-retrieval machines which get progressively more complicated and preposterous as The Beast's size grows in their imaginations. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Tom Guiry, Mike Vitar, (more)
