Brian Witten Movies

A family camping trip into the pine forests of Southern New Jersey becomes a harrowing battle against the supernatural when a wicked urban legend emerges from the darkness of the deep woods. Rumor has it that 400 years ago, Satan himself sired the Jersey Devil. The name alone is enough to strike fear into the heart of anyone from the region, but adventurous urbanite Richard Vineyard (Stephen Moyer) is determined to get his kids off the couch and have them experience the outdoors. Shortly after journeying deep into the forest for the perfect camping site, however, Richard has a run-in with the Jersey Devil that leaves him deeply shaken. Later, as Richard's behavior grows increasingly erratic, his terrified wife and children begin to fear that they will never make it out of the forest alive. Allie MacDonald, Mia Kirshner, and Erik Knudsen co-star in this shocker from director Darren Lynn Bousman (Mother's Day, Repo! The Genetic Opera). ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A psychotic woman and her adult sons torment the new occupants of their former house in director Darren Lynn Bousman's remake of the demented Troma classic. In the wake of a botched bank robbery, three brothers race back home and learn that their mother (Rebecca De Mornay) has received a foreclosure notice. Flash-forward a couple of months, and the new owners of the home are throwing a housewarming party with a few close friends. In an instant, the brothers have taken the party guests hostage. But the real horror begins when their mother arrives. Sadistic, ferocious, and fiercely protective of her malevolent sons, she turns a happy celebration into a depraved nightmare of torture and death. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The first release from Scary Madison - the genre division of Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production house - director Nicholas Goossen's small town frightener serves as a shocking wake-up call to teenage trespassers everywhere. High school senior Derek (Drew Seeley) was adjusting to life in a new town when he discovered an overgrown path leading into the woods. According to his classmates, the local kids used to use it as a shortcut before a malevolent farmer began chasing them away with a shovel. Eventually, a few of the local kids went missing under mysterious circumstances. Rumor has it that the old man got them. Now years have passed, and no one dares go near the path. The townspeople have simply accepted the fact that it's off limits. But Derek suspects that the old man is hiding something, and he's determined to find out what it is. Once he uncovers the sinister secret that lies just beyond the trees, however, he may not live to reveal the awful truth. Dave Franco, Katrina Bowden, and Shannon Woodward co-star. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

What's a middle-aged woman to do when her husband walks out on her and her favorite pop star is murdered by a serial killer? Writer/director P.J. Hogan explores this and many other pressing questions in Unconditional Love, a comic murder-mystery he devised with his wife and co-screenwriter, Jocelyn Moorhouse. Their heroine, Grace Beasly (Kathy Bates), finds her placid Midwestern life turned upside down after she loses both of the aforementioned men in her life: her husband (Dan Aykroyd) and the Tom Jones-like, Welsh singing star Victor Fox (Jonathan Pryce), whom she unabashedly worships. After Fox's death, Grace impetuously flies to England for his funeral. Paying an uninvited visit to his countryside estate, she discovers Dirk Simpson (Rupert Everett), Fox's longtime, secret live-in lover, who's also in a state of shock following the senseless murder. Together, the two team up, traveling back to the Windy City to find the infamous "Crossbow Killer" who took Fox's life. After receiving a fall 2002 release in the U.K., Unconditional Love had its U.S. premiere on the Starz network in August 2003. ~ Michael Hastings, Rovi

In this teenage horror film, a young man avoids the hand of death, only to find that he can't get away from it so easily. On the way to Paris with his high-school French club, Alex Browning (Devon Sawa) has a vivid premonition of the plane crashing and killing all its passengers. After Alex and some other passengers demand to be let off the flight, his premonition turns out to be true, and the jet explodes during takeoff. While the FBI is convinced that Alex was involved in some kind of foul play, the passengers who got off the flight are all dying in horrible ways, as if whoever determined that the passengers would perish is punishing those who cheated death. Final Destination marked the feature directorial debut of James Wong, a producer and director for the TV series The X Files. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Nick Chen (Chow Yun-Fat) was the first Chinese-born immigrant in the NYPD, and is now one of the force's most decorated officers. As such, he's been named leader of the city's Asian Gang Unit, who are the primary peacekeepers in Chinatown. Trouble has just arrived for the Triads, the long-entrenched Chinese gangsters who are the real power behind Chinatown. After years of posing as honest businessmen, the Triad's powers are threatened by the newly arrived Fukienese Dragons. With a gang war on the horizon, the city sends a new recruit, Danny Wallace (Mark Wahlberg), to join Chen's unit. Danny finds Chen and the AGU in a very comfortable (perhaps too comfortable) relationship with the Triads. When the mobsters attempt to corrupt Danny, Chen must reassess his relationship with the Triads, and Danny must also learn that certain concessions must be made to ensure the peace in this world set apart from the rest of New York. ~ Ron Wells, Rovi

Science fiction blends with domestic horror in this thriller. Spencer Armacost (Johnny Depp) is an astronaut on a routine mission in space when something goes horribly wrong and it looks as if he's doomed. However, Spencer is rescued at the last moment and returns to earth a hero. He soon announces that he's retiring from space exploration to spend more time with his wife Jillian (Charlize Theron). Jillian has suffered from depression in the past and would like to start a family, so she's initially thrilled with Spencer's decision. Jillian soon finds herself pregnant, but she starts to notice something odd about her husband, as if the man who returned isn't quite the same person who went away. As her pregnancy advances, Jillian's anxieties increase, but has something really happened to Spencer, or have Jillian's old demons merely resurfaced? The Astronaut's Wife marked the directorial debut of Rand Ravich, who previously penned screenplays for such films as The Maker and Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Alex Proyas (The Crow) directed this noir-styled futuristic thriller, scripted by Proyas, Lem Dobbs (Kafka), and David S. Goyer (The Puppet Masters). Separated from his wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly), amnesiac John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) awakens alone in a strange hotel to learn he is wanted for a series of brutal killings -- but he can't remember if he did or didn't commit these murders. Indeed, most of his memories have completely vanished, and he becomes the focus of interest for both mad genius Dr. Schreber (Kiefer Sutherland) and sympathetic detective Frank Bumstead (William Hurt). Attempting to unravel the twisted riddle of his identity, Murdoch encounters a group of ominous beings known as the Strangers, shadow-like figures who have a collective memory and possess the ability to stop time and alter physical reality through a process called The Tuning. Focusing their minds, they are able to change the size and shape of the material world. Murdoch manages to stay a step ahead of his adversaries as he slowly jigsaws together the puzzle of his past-bittersweet memories of his childhood, his love for Emma, and the key to the murders -- while following a labyrinth leading to the Strangers' Underworld, a set inspired by Fritz Lang's Metropolis. Rufus Sewell commented on the Underworld: "When Alex first sent me the sketches for that set, I was more excited than I had been when I read the script. The Underworld was truly remarkable -- a little bit scary, very thrilling, and full of hundreds of bald people." At the Fox Film Studios in Sydney, Australia, where 50 sets were built, three months were spent constructing the set for the Underworld, the largest indoor set ever built in Australia. The production design by George Liddle (Rapa Nui) and Patrick Tatopoulos (Godzilla, Space: Above and Beyond) is a composite of different styles and eras, combining the look of 1940s Manhattan with German Expressionism. The music is by Trevor Jones (G.I. Jane). The film's dedication reads: "In Memory of Dennis Potter with gratitude and admiration." ~ Bhob Stewart, Rovi

One of the most popular independent comic books of its decade was transformed into this dark, bloody adventure intended to launch a profitable superhero franchise. Michael Jai White stars as Al Simmons, a corrupt assassin betrayed and murdered by his evil government supervisor, Jason Wynn (Martin Sheen). Sent to Hell, Simmons is offered a chance to return to the earthly plane if he will become a "Hellspawn" ("Spawn" for short), one of many super-powered creatures assigned to encourage living souls along the path to damnation. Simmons hastily agrees to this deal and becomes a twisted, scarred version of his former self, living in a dingy alleyway, with no hope of regaining his life, as several years have passed and his wife Wanda (Theresa Randle) has married his best friend, Terry Fitzgerald (D.B. Sweeney). Despite the best efforts of his mentor, a demonic clown (John Leguizamo), Spawn performs mostly heroic acts, though he is not above seeking revenge on Wynn. Despite the film's middling box office take, plans for a sequel were announced. The same summer that Spawn was released, the comic was also the basis of a well-received cable TV series. ~ Karl Williams, Rovi