Pierre LeBlanc Movies
An ancient secret threatens to unleash the powers of darkness on a group of modern prep school students when the sole survivor of a cursed bloodline returns to lay claim to the powers denied to him centuries ago in a supernatural teen thriller from director Renny Harlin and screenwriter J.S. Cardone. The story begins in 1692, when five families from the Ipswich Colony of Massachusetts formed a covenant of silence that would forever protect their remarkable powers. One family went too far, though, and as a result of their transgression they were forever banished from the land. Flash forward to the new millennium and the four Sons of Ipswich are now the student elite at the prestigious Spenser Academy. Bound by their sacred ancestry and sworn to silence, these four teens share a secret so remarkable that it has served to protect their families for hundreds of years. The past has a way of coming back when you least expect it though, and when the fifth Son of Ipswich returns seeking to harness the powers denied him in the past, the battle is on to ensure the safety of The Covenant and lay the one descendent who threatens to reveal their secret to rest once and for all. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Steven Strait, Sebastian Stan, (more)
For his first film since 1998's Twilight, acclaimed director Robert Benton helmed this tense drama written by Fatal Attraction co-scribe Nicholas Meyer and based on the novel of the same name by Philip Roth. Set in the late '90s at the height of the Clinton sex-scandal, The Human Stain stars Anthony Hopkins as Coleman Silk, a respected professor at a New England college who suddenly finds his life unraveling after a comment he makes about some African-American students is misinterpreted as a racial slur. As the scandal heats up, Nathan Zuckerman (Gary Sinise), a writer researching a biography of Silk, begins to dig deeper and deeper into Silk's life. Eventually, matters are made worse when an affair with a young married janitor named Faunia Farley (Nicole Kidman) is exposed. But amid the controversy, Silk must struggle to keep his greatest secret, a secret he's held for the majority of his life, from becoming public. Ed Harris, who previously worked with Benton in 1984's Places in the Heart, also stars. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Anthony Hopkins, Nicole Kidman, (more)
- 1993
Exploitation filmmaker Bruno Mattei came to the giallo subgenre surprisingly late in the cycle with this low-budget effort (directed under the name Pierre Le Blanc) which bears more in common with the American erotic thrillers then in vogue than the classic horror-tinged mysteries of Dario Argento and Mario Bava. Considering that Mattei has been responsible for some of the most brutal films in Italian history (KZ 9 -- Lager di Sterminio; Inferno dei Morti-Viventi), it is also a surprisingly low-key affair, trading more on implied sexual taboos than actual bloodshed. Gabriele Gori toplines as film student Carlo Monti, who pretends to be the long-lost son of deceased film director Lanfrano De Molinis in order to get information for his thesis on the legendary filmmaker from his daughter, Emma (Monique Seller). Naturally, Carlo begins an affair with his newfound "sister," and the supposedly dead director (cult favorite David Warbeck) turns up alive. Among the surprises in store for Carlo are De Molinis' alcoholic sexual molestation of Emma, as well as Emma's own lesbian affair with Paola (Tracy Kelly), who happens to be Carlo's professor and is plotting with Emma to kill both him and De Molinis before making off with the director's money. ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
