John Buchanan Movies

Directed by David Mackenzie, Asylum follows a 1950s family living in a home on the grounds of an asylum after Max (Hugh Bonneville), the patriarch, is assigned to serve as deputy director of a remote psychiatric hospital. Neither his wife, Stella (Natasha Richardson), nor his young son, Charlie (Augustus Jeremiah Lewis), are particularly happy about the arrangements, though Stella finds herself slowly becoming attracted to Edgar Stark (Marton Csokas), a charismatic inmate. Despite the obvious repercussions of an extramarital affair and the sage advice of Dr. Cleave (Ian McKellen), a colleague of her husband, Stella's slow-burning attraction becomes an all out obsession; before long, Stella is barely aware that she is risking her family, her sanity, and even her very life for Edgar. Asylum is based on a novel by Patrick McGrath. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide

The story of George Adamson, whose work helped inspire the book and subsequent film Born Free, is continued in the fact-based drama To Walk With Lions. In Kenya in the late 1980's, Tony Fitzjohn (John Michie) is a young man from London who has a job as a driver with a safari guide company. However, Tony's commitment is less to exploring the wilds than in picking up women (especially wealthy tourists), so when he's fired, Tony just wants to get another job fast to get airfare home. The first position he finds is assisting George Adamson (Richard Harris), who with his bother Terence (Ian Bannen) helps "rehabilitate" lions from zoos and returns them to the wild. George is more devoted to his animals than to most people, but a bond of respect and understanding develops between George and Tony, and Tony develops a similar rapport with the lions. Tony also develops a different sort of attachment to Lucy (Kerry Fox), a British anthropologist studying indigenous tribes in Kenya. However, the tone shifts when George's ex-wife, Joy (Honor Blackman) arrives for a visit. George and Joy did not separate on cordial terms, and their meeting is brief and contentious (while Joy made a tidy sum from the book Born Free, George never received any of the money for his continuing work with the lions). Shortly after her departure, Joy is killed by one of her servants. While To Walk With Lions is in several respects critical of the wildlife policies of the Kenyan government, the film was financed in part by Kenyans and was filmed in Kenya with the support and cooperation of state authorities. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A family of incestuous Dutch aristocrats emigrates to New England, and 300 years later, their long-lost descendent returns to the ancestral environs to research his rare blood disorder in this low-budget horror flick based on a mothballed Dan O'Bannon script. Orphan John (Roy Dupuis) yearns for more information about his family -- and the genetic disorder that threatens his life. Arriving on the Maine island to which he's traced his ancestry, just as its cemetary is being dug up and relocated due to health-code violations, he and his wife, Kathleen (Kristin Lehman) encounter a gin-soaked old M.D. (Rutger Hauer) who agrees to help them in their search for more information. Meanwhile, residents of the island begin to disappear one by one and it appears that a race of horrific mutants is to blame. Slowly realizing the links between John's family legacy and the attacks, the island's surviving residents band together to fend off the monstrous threat. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide