Gregg Hale Movies

A romantic trip to China turns into a lunar nightmare for a pair of happy newlyweds when their taxi driver ditches them in a remote village, and the locals offer them up as sacrifices for the menacing moon creatures that return to Earth annually to replenish their ranks. According to Chinese legend, the dead return to Earth on the seventh month of the lunar year, when the moon glows full in the night sky. America-born Yul (Tim Chiou) and his new wife Melissa (Amy Smart) had just arrived in China to meet Yul's family when their idyllic getaway takes a sudden turn for the worse. When night falls and their tour guide leaves them stranded in a darkened, boarded-up village, Yul and Amy quickly realize that this wasn't a planned stop. Once a year, the lunar creatures return to Earth in search of a sacrifice. Yul and Amy have just been offered up, and now in order to avoid being assimilated into the collective that pursues them through the darkened forest, they will have to survive until the morning light casts the frightful beasts back to the moon for another year. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Drawing inspiration from the true story of a temperamental debate coach who molded the students of a small East Texas college into a formidable team that gave even Harvard's elite squad a run for their money, Denzel Washington's The Great Debaters features the director himself as the ambitious educator, and Forest Whitaker as the resentful father of a student whose loyalties now lie almost exclusively with his coach. Melvin B. Tolson (Washington) is the kind of educator who truly recognizes the remarkable power of knowledge. An outspoken Wiley College professor who boldly challenged the discriminatory Jim Crow laws of the 1930s, Tolson's recognizes that his young debate students possess the spark of a new generation. Convinced that they could invoke great change if given the confidence and tools needed to do so, the tireless educator implores his students to take responsibility for the future while furtively attempting to protect them from his clandestine role as an organizer for the Southern Tenant Farmers Union. Chief among Tolson's promising young students is a 14-year-old prodigy named James Farmer, Jr. (Denzel Whitaker). Farmer's father, James Sr. (Forest Whitaker), is a renowned scholar and an important presence in the emerging student's life. Yet despite his formidable reputation, James Sr. has not yet learned how to truly harness the power of knowledge through action and assertion. James Jr. has seen the raving effects of racism all around him, and longs to live in a future where no one must be in fear simply because of the color of their skin. Other talented debaters on Tolson's team include fiercely independent student Henry Lowe (Nate Parker), and Samantha Brooke (Jurnee Smollett) -- the first ever female ever to join the Wiley College debate team. While most educators may not have recognized the remarkable potential of assembling such a disparate team, Tolson's unique vision truly set him apart from the pack as the team begins to experience a series of consecutive victories on their road to challenging Harvard at the National Championships. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

After a 21-year absence, the classic speculative documentary series In Search Of returns with more fascinating stories of the strange, the unusual, and the phenomenal. Replacing the original series' host/narrator Leonard Nimoy is actor Mitch Pileggi, who, as a former regular on The X-Files, is no stranger to the paranormal. Unlike the earlier series, which focused on one topic per episode, the new In Search Of features three different topics in each of its eight episodes -- many of which are "animated" with dramatic reenactments rather than with vintage photographs or archival footage. Also, whereas the earlier series was syndicated, this version was seen on cable's Sci-Fi Channel. Among the subjects explored in the 2002 edition of In Search Of are hell, vampires, Nikola Tesla's alleged "death ray," witchcraft, maneaters, ghosts, werewolves, mummies, reincarnation, stigmata, zombies, great lovers, possession, robots, sacred shrouds, aliens, catacombs, bigfoot, the Devil, and Doomsday. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Combining Hi-8 video with black-and-white 16 mm film, this film presents a raw look at what can happen when college students forego common sense and enter the world of voodoo and witchcraft. Presented as a straightforward documentary, the film opens with a title card explaining that in 1994, three students went into the Maryland back woods to do a film project on the Blair Witch incidents. These kids were never seen again, and the film you are about to see is from their recovered equipment, found in the woods a year later. The entire movie documents their adventures leading up to their final minutes. The Blair Witch incident, as we initially learn from the local town elders, is an old legend about a group of witches who tortured and killed several children many years ago. Everyone in town knows the story and they're all sketchy on the details. Out in the woods and away from their parked car (and civilization), what starts as a school exercise turns into a nightmare when the three kids lose their map. Forced to spend extra days finding their way out, the kids then start to hear horrific sounds outside their tents in the pitch-black middle of night. They also find strange artifacts from (what can only be) the Blair Witch, still living in the woods. Frightened, they desperately try to find their way out of the woods, with no luck. Slowly these students start to unravel, knowing they have no way of getting out, no food, and it's getting cold. Each night they are confronted with shrieking and sounds so haunting that they are convinced someone is following them, and they quickly begin to fear for their lives. The film premiered in the midnight movie section at the 1999 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Chris Gore, All Movie Guide