J.E. Freeman Movies

After an unnerving brush with death, a filmmaker finds that his ordeal isn't quite over in this modestly budgeted horror movie. Tom Kempton (Alex McArthur) is a successful animator who wants to get away from the hustle and bustle of Hollywood for a while. He joins several friends for a vacation in Northern Michigan, where they rent snowmobiles to make the most of the snowy winter weather. Kempton gets separated from his friends while exploring the slopes and soon finds himself lost; looking for shelter, he takes refuge in a small cabin, only to discover it's inhabited by Vanessa Boulette (Laura Esterman) and her sister Ann (Sage Allen), a pair of elderly siblings with a feeble hold on reality and a taste for human flesh. Captured and tortured by the Boulette sisters, Kempton is saved at the last minute, but the experience makes a deep impression on him and he uses his fearsome experience as the basis for his next project. Even though Kempton has been reassured that the Boulette sisters died in their showdown with the authorities, he's convinced the threat isn't gone, and it turns out he's right -- one of the sisters had a bastard daughter which was put up for adoption, and her son now displays many of the same psychotic tendencies as his grandmother. Suspended Animation marked a return to the horror genre for director John D. Hancock, who in 1971 made the cult favorite Let's Scare Jessica to Death. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Somewhere in San Francisco, Olya (Daphne Rubin Vega) is an exotic dancer who works at an upscale strip club. A mysterious woman who harbors numerous past lives, she lives with her lover Trisha (Ria Pavia), a novelist who is writing a book about none other than Olya. In her spare time, Olya engages in secret liaisons with Anna (Serena Scott Thomas), an advertising executive trapped in a stagnating marriage to Victor (Tony Denison). Victor, however, is no dummy and one day, after following his wife to her meeting, he confronts Olya. She has no idea who Victor is, but spontaneously engages in a liberating bout of open-air nookie with him, all of which she later relays to Anna, who is less than thrilled. When it becomes apparent that the two women met in a cancer support group, and that neither has told her respective spouse about her illness, an already complicated love triangle takes on added portent. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, Rovi

The second volume in this film noir style TV-anthology series, this collection of short stories revolves around the dark world of detectives and police officers. Called to look into a murder, an investigator (Gary Oldman) discovers that the victim of the crime is none other than his estranged wife (Gabrielle Anwar) in "Dead End for Delia." When an attractive woman captures the attention of a detective, he ends up entangled in mob business in "I'll Be Waiting." In "The Quiet Room," the underhanded plans of two unscrupulous officers go amok ~ Iotis Erlewine, Rovi

Based on Shelby Foote's novel September, September, this made-for-cable effort focuses on the exploits of a trio of white drifters who hatch a scheme to kidnap the young grandson of the wealthiest black industrialist in Memphis, Tennessee in 1957. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

When an attorney returns to her hometown to defend an accused murderer, she finds that the locals have strong opinions about the defendant and do not take kindly to her position. ~ Kristie Hassen, Rovi

After years of searching through orphanage records, Richie (Stan Kirsch) is convinced that he has found his real father. Duncan (Adrian Paul) doubts this, especially after meeting Richie's self-confessed "daddy", a two-bit gambler named Joe Scanlon (J.E. Freeman). As it happens, Richie is being set up for betrayal to one of Joe's more lethal creditors, a chap named Clinch (Peter DeLuise), forcing Duncan to go to the rescue of his pal yet again. This was the second episode of Highlander to be filmed, but the 11th to be telecast. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Two centuries after Ellen Ripley's death, doctors aboard the space station Auriga clone her using a blood sample taken from Fiorna 161, in hopes of harvesting the queen embryo that was incubating inside of her when she was trapped on the remote penal planet. Finally succeeding after numerous attempts, they remove the alien and repair the clone for further study. Before long, the Ripley clone has gained consciousness, and displays superhuman capabilities that suggest it possesses alien DNA. When Ripley discovers that General Perez (Dan Hedaya) is keeping the queen in a heavily fortified room of the space station, she warns the military man and his scientists that the creature cannot be contained no matter how hard they try. Meanwhile, General Perez has hired a crew of space pirates to deliver the cryogenically frozen bodies of another ship to the Auriga so they can be used to breed more aliens. The leader of the pirates is Johner (Ron Perlman), a gruff mercenary who engages Ripley to no avail. When Call (Winona Ryder), one of Johner's crewmembers, admits that she was sent to assassinate Ripley, General Perez attempts to have the pirates executed. The result is a tense standoff between the pirates and the military men, with the aliens causing havoc after breaking free of their containment cells. Attempting a daring escape, Ripley and the pirates discover the lab where she was cloned before being forced to swim through the mess hall, which has been submerged in water during the aliens' escape. Discovering a carefully guarded secret about Call's past, Ripley attempts to convince her to alter the Auruga's course, which was set to Earth when the ship went into emergency mode. With the fate of mankind hanging in the balance, Ripley is captured by the aliens and taken to their nest, where she comes face to face with the mutated results of the scientists' experiments. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Dr. Helen Hudson (Sigourney Weaver), a psychiatrist famous for her writings about serial murderers, is nearly killed by obsessed psychopath Daryll Lee Cullum (Harry Connick Jr.). As a result of this trauma, Helen becomes a drunken, pill-taking agoraphobic who can't leave her San Francisco apartment. After a series of bizarre murders, she calls the police suggesting that the murders were the work of a serial killer. Detective M.J. Monahan (Holly Hunter) and her assistant Ruben (Dermot Mulroney) believe Helen and discover, during the investigation, that the man is re-creating murders by the killers described in Helen's book: The Boston Strangler, Ted Bundy, Son of Sam and the Hillside Strangler. After Helen's secretary, Andy (John Rothmen) is murdered, Helen begins to fear for her own life. The film has a dramatic, terrifying conclusion as Helen confronts the killer and must overcome her own fears to save herself. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

A psychotic estranged wife attempts to sabotage her husband's new romance by turning her children against his lover in this thriller. Jude (Jamie Lee Curtis) had abandoned her husband Robert (Peter Gallagher) and their three sons several years earlier. Unfortunately, now that Robert has filed for divorce after falling in love with Callie (Joanne Whalley-Kilmer), the sweet-natured assistant principal at his son's school, Jude is back for revenge. At first she merely tries to convince the children that Callie is an intruder on the rightful family, but the psychotic Jude's actions soon turn dangerous, as she attempts to frame the educator for assault. Things become particularly sticky when she tries to win over her 12-year-old son Kes (Luke Edwards), involving him in a potentially deadly scheme. Director Yves Simoneau borrows from numerous other stalker dramas and attempts to ratchet the action to a feverish pitch in the conclusion, but Jude's behavior remains unbelievable, and most critics found Mother's Boys an unconvincing, often over-the-top psychodrama. ~ Judd Blaise, Rovi

Chappy Sinclair enlists the aid of a team of wild air show pilots after he discovers that a Peruvian drug lord has set up shop in a small village. The fly boys make off with a fleet of World War II vintage aircraft in an effort to drive the drug dealers out of business, but they come up against a former Air Force comrade of Sinclair's, who is part of the illegal operation. ~ Rovi

Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern play a pair of lovers on the run in David Lynch's surrealist road movie Wild at Heart. Cage's Sailor Ripley is a violent ex-convict with an Elvis Presley fixation who falls in love with Dern's Lula Pace Fortune, the daughter of a rich, but mentally unstable, Southern belle named Marietta (Diane Ladd, Dern's real-life mother). Just after Sailor is released from prison, where he was jailed for brutally killing one of Marietta's thugs, he and Lula take off on a wild cross-country trip, pursued by his parole officer, her mother, criminals, bounty hunters, and detectives. Along the way, Sailor and Lula have a lot of sex, share their pasts, share their respective obsessions for Elvis and The Wizard of Oz, and meet a lot of bizarre characters, including a seedy ex-marine (Willem Dafoe) who persuades Sailor to participate in a bank robbery. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, Rovi

Michael Ritchie's The Couch Trip follows a long line of Hollywood films (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Disorderly Orderly) in which the psychos are seen as saner than the psychiatrists. Charles Grodin plays Dr. George Maitlin, a pompous radio self-help guru, who is having his own personal mental breakdown. Maitlin's lawyer puts in a call to a Cicero, IL, mental facility and the telephone is answered by schizophrenic mental patient John Burns (Dan Aykroyd). Thinking Burns is a crony of Maitlin, Burns is offered the job of replacing Maitlin during his recovery. Of course, Burns accepts the job. Immediately jetted to Los Angeles, Burns meets panhandler Donald Becker (Walter Matthau) at the airport. While wearing the garb of a priest, Becker sounds off against the madness of societal conventions; Burns takes to him immediately and they become fast friends. When Burns assumes command of the airwaves in Maitlin's place, his words of wisdom are so obvious and commonsensical that he is an overnight sensation. Meanwhile, in London, where Maitlin is convalescing, he gets wind of Burns' success. With renewed vigor and outrage, Maitlin leaves his recovery room and hops on a plane back to Los Angeles in an effort to recover his radio show. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi