Alan Fudge Movies

Tourist season sets the stage for terror when a greedy developer attempts to transform a quiet California fishing town into a gaudy tourist trap, and a swarm of man-eating Great Whites begin devouring anyone who dares venture into the once-peaceful waters. Decades of dumping has turned the Pacific Ocean into a toxic cesspool, and while some species died out others somehow managed to survive and adapt. Full Moon Bay is a sleepy seaside town populated primarily by fisherman, though slimy industrial millionaire Hamilton Lux (Armand Assante) is planning to rape the land a reap a profit. Should Lux have his way, overpriced shops will flank historic landmarks and a luxury resort will draw tourists from around the world. Of course this will put a stranglehold on the local business, such as the nearby fishery fun by Daniel (John Schneider) and Brook Wilder (Daryl Hannah). Wilder isn't about to go down without a fight though, and though he's never seen eye to eye with his estranged brother Phillip (Roark Critchlow) - a noted professor and environmental expert - the siblings are about to reunite to fight for a common cause. Just as Phillip returns to town, word emerges that a number of locals have been torn to shreds and eaten alive after venturing into in bay. When Marine biologist Amy Zuckermann (Heather McComb) arrives to survey Lex's developments, she makes a most disturbing discovery - a beached bull shark with sensory organs that still display predatory instincts even after death. As if this news wasn't horrifying enough, Amy discovers that a swarm of Great White sharks are stalking the waters and killing for pleasure. Each day the number of sharks grows, and each day they become more violent. With the sun shining bright and the tourists turning up in droves, Amy, Daniel, and Brook must figure out a way to stop these killing machines before the feast begins. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

In this feature-length follow-up to the long-running TV series Murder, She Wrote, homespun mystery novelist Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) leaves her Cabot Cove residence to attend a big-city writer's conference. As generally happens wherever Jessica shows up, a murder takes place; in this instance, the victim is a former KGB agent (Duncan Regehr) who was about to publish his tell-all memoirs. Teaming up with fellow author Warren Pierce (Richard Crenna), Jessica sets about to solve the murder -- much to the dismay of the local constabulary. Allegedly written as far back as 1998 (by Babylon 5 stalwart J. Michael Straczynski), Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For finally arrived on the CBS prime-time manifest on May 18, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A time capsule buried 20 years ago is unearthed, yielding letters written in childhood by Joe (Tim Daly), Brian (Steven Weber), and Helen (Crystal Bernard). In a series of fantasy sequences, the three lifelong chums visualize what their lives would have been like had they fulfilled their childhood ambitions. Joe cuts quite a figure as a big-league ballplayer, while Brian is coolness personified as a Bond-like secret agent -- but only Helen's ambitions came to full fruition in real life. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

This time we're off to the Canadian Rockies, where vacationer Jessica (Angela Lansbury) is stranded in a small town. At the same time, a bitter turf war has developed between a local Native American tribe and a powerful mining company. Not one but two murders result from this conflict, whereupon Jessica really cuts her vacation short to solve the mystery. The episode is distinguished by the presence of two leading Native American actors, Graham Greene and Ned Romero. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

A motion picture crew descends upon Cabot Cove to film a historical documentary. In the course of production, the crew unearths an old document signed by George Washington, which claims that the town's most venerated Revolutionary War hero, Joshua Peabody, was actually a traitorous scoundrel. Evidently someone isn't pleased about having his or her illusions shattered: shortly after the document appears, the film's director is murdered. Now it is up to Jessica (Angela Lansbury) to burrow through the multitude of likely suspects. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Nancy Landon (Vera Miles) swoops down on Cabot Cove with the announcement that her son Steve (Richard Gilliland) had been fathered by the late husband of Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury). With this in mind, Nancy insists that Jessica is obligated to help clear Steve fraud and murder charges related to the Landons' construction business. Though it pains her to do so, Jessica does what she can to prove Steve's innocence. Also in the cast is Martin Milner as Jessica's friend Clint Phelps, who may know more about the case than he's letting on. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Actress Susan Ruttan, who played the quietly efficient legal secretary on LA Law, does an artistic about-face in the TV movie Deadly Medicine. She plays a Texas pediatrics nurse who may have committed several "mercy killings" of her charges. 43 babies die under mysterious circumstances, with Ms. Ruttan seemingly always lurking in the corridor. When confronted by doctor Veronica Hamel, Susan threatens to accuse Ms. Hamel of the murders--and she does, with astonishing success. Though constructed like a network "mystery of the week", Deadly Medicine is founded on fact. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this made-for-cable television horror thriller, a travel writer visits a historic hotel to write a story about it and inadvertently finds herself on the 13th floor where she witnesses a Satanic rite and tangles with an axe-wielding killer. She escapes, but no one believes her story because the hotel has no 13th floor. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Where Columbo (Peter Falk) goes, can murder be far behind? In Columbo Goes to College, the rumpled TV sleuth shows up on campus as a guest lecturer on criminology. His visit coincides with the machinations of two rich and arrogant frat boys (Justin Rowe and Cooper Redman) who utilize "remote control" to kill the professor who's threatened to expel them. In the tradition of Compulsion, the snide young killers flaunt their intellectual superiority before the seemingly ingenuous Columbo. No wonder these boys were on the verge of flunking out--they'd never bothered to check up on Columbo's previous track record for convictions. Outside of the novel setting, Columbo Goes to College is a by-rote rehash of an old formula; even Peter Falk seems bored. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Based on a true story, the two-part TV movie I Know My First Name Is Steven tells the tragic story of Steven Stayner. At age seven, Steven was kidnapped by two men who held him captive in a tiny shed for seven years. One of the men, a habitual child abuser named Kenneth Parnell, sexually assaulted Steven on an almost daily basis during the boy's ordeal. At age 14, Steven finally was able to escape and return to his family. But we are shown that Steven's safe return was far from the happy ending it appeared to be. He's forced to adjust to a family he'd never really known, to convince himself that his parents had never forgotten him, and to put his seven-year hell behind him. While I Know My First Name Is Steven ends on an upbeat note, the real Stayner died in a motorcycle accident only a few months after this film was first telecast in May 1989. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Shootdown, based on a controversial book by R. W. Johnson, examines the aftereffects of a politically sensitive air disaster. Angela Lansbury portrays the real-life Nan Moore, a US government employee whose son (Kyle Secor) is among the 269 people killed when Korean airliner KAL 007 is shot down by the Russians on September 1, 1983. The official story is that the plane accidentally invaded Russian airspace, then was mistaken for a spy plane when the crew did not identify itself. Ms. Moore doesn't swallow this, but in seeking the truth she runs up against a stone wall of bureaucracy. This film adheres to Ms. Moore's theory that KAL 007 was engaged in an actual spy mission, a theory dramatized in a "reconstruction" assembled by investigator John Cullum. Reportedly, the original telecast date of Shootdown was delayed because of its criticism of the Reagan administration; the real Nan Moore insisted that the film's production was slowed down because she didn't want to offend any members of her family. The intention of Shootdown was to put pressure on the US congress to inaugurate a hearing for the benefit of Ms. Moore. In 1989, a second TV movie based on the KAL 007 tragedy was released: Tailspin, which tells the story from the point of view of the government investigators. Since the original telecast of both films, new evidence has surfaced indicating that Flight 007 was not on an espionage mission, and that the Russian fighter pilots had acted on the orders of their over-zealous superiors. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Billionaire Boys Club is the two-part TV adaptation of a book by Sue Horton (unpublished at the time of the film's first telecast). In flashback form, the story recounts the murder of Beverly Hills con artist Ron Levin (Ron Silver). The culprit is yuppie Joe Hunt (Judd Nelson), a sharp young commodities trader who has organized an investment firm with several of his prep school buddies, known as the Billionaire Boys Club. Part one, originally telecast November 8, 1987, traces Hunt's meteoric rise to wealth and power, and the means by which Levin worms his way into Hunt's confidence. In part two, shown the next evening, Hunt has already murdered Levin and carefully disposed of the body. The next step of the scheme is take over where Levin left off by conning an Iranian millionaire out of a huge sum of money. Meanwhile, other members of the Club begin to have qualms over Hunt's finagling. Their whistle-blowing leads to Hunt's arrest and convinction for murder. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Raquel Welch's astonishing performance in the made-for-TV Right to Die compensates for any number of script deficiencies. Ms. Welch plays a successful psychologist with a happy home life who is suddenly stricken with the dreaded neurological affliction ALS (aka "Lou Gehrig's Disease"). At first, she is determined to fight for her life, but as her conditions deteriorates and she becomes more of a human vegetable, Ms. Welch begs her husband (Michael Gross) to help her die. The producers of Right to Die chose Raquel Welch not so much for her resemblance to the real-life person upon whom the story is based, but in the hopes that this "offbeat" piece of casting would attract a large TV audience. Ms. Welch accepted the role to counter industry accusations that she was impossible to work with. Thus the motivations behind Right to Die were more commercially oriented than the film's subject matter deserved, but this can be excused in the light of Welch's harrowingly accurate portrayal of a woman literally dying by inches before our eyes. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi