Brandon Jay McLaren Movies

Director Eli Craig and co-screenwriter Morgan Jurgenson poke fun at horror clichés with this genre-bending comedy about a pair of harmless backwoods hayseeds who are mistaken for vicious serial killers. Dale (Tyler Labine) and Tucker (Alan Tudyk) are checking out their newly acquired "summer home" (read: dilapidated cabin) when they save the life of a gorgeous college student (Katrina Bowden) who's camping in the woods with some friends. When a series of misunderstandings leads to Dale and Tucker being labeled psycho killers by the vacationing students, the situation takes a sudden and ghastly turn for the worst. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The directorial debut of Brandon Camp concerns a widower (Aaron Eckhart) who makes a living as an expert on grieving. During the course of teaching a seminar, he meets and begins to fall for a floral designer (Jennifer Aniston), a discovery that leads him to face up to the fact he has not fully reconciled the loss of his wife. ~ Perry Seibert, Rovi

A woman trying to escape traumatic memories from her past finds history repeating itself in this gory horror story. Joan Burrows (Brittney Wilson) was an ordinary teenager growing up in a small Colorado town until she and a friend were abducted by Ernie Bishop, who ran the local funeral parlor. Joan and her friend discovered to their horror that Ernie was a violent lunatic who performed elaborate torture rituals on young women, and while Joan was able to escape with her life, her friend was killed. Sixteen years later, Joan (now played by Angela Bettis), who bears a facial scar and vivid memories of the attack, returns home for the first time to visit her older brother Jeff (Christopher Titus) and his daughter Olympia (Kirby Bliss Blanton), who has been voted queen of the local high school's senior prom. However, the mutilated bodies of Olympia's friends and classmates are soon littering the town, and both Joan and Jeff suspect that Ernie is back and up to his old tricks. Scar was produced in two versions -- one in a new 3-D process, the other shot using High Definition digital video technology. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Season One of the latest Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers spinoff Power Rangers SPD begins, appropriately, with the two-part "Beginnings." The year is 2020, and the fragile peace between earthlings and extraterrestrials is in danger of being shattered by the evil Troobian emperor Gruumm (Rene Naufahu) and his Krybot soldiers; worse still, Gruumm is assisted by malevolent youngster Mora (Olivia James-Baird), who can conjure up additional villains merely by drawing them on paper. As the elite A-squad of the Space Patrol Delta Power Rangers zooms off to do battle with Grumm in space, Cmdr. "Doggie" Cruger (John Tui) prepares a quintet of rookie B-squad members, fresh from New Ranger Academy, to safeguard the surface of the earth. Three of these novices are Blue SPD Ranger Sky (Chris Violette), Green SPD Ranger Bridge (Matt Austin), and Pink SPD Ranger Syd (Alycia Purrott). They are joined by Jack (Brandon Jay McLaren) and "Z" (Monica May), who are introduced as thieves but who quickly reformed and assimilated. "Z" is designated the Yellow SPD Ranger, while Jack is the Red SPD Ranger--and as such he is obliged to assume leadership of the "B-squad", which does not endear him to Sky, who'd expected to be given this honor. Season Highlights include the 2-part "Sam", in which Mora endeavors to win a lonely kid with teleportation powers over to the bad guys, while "Z" tries to convince the boy to stay on the side of Right. In another two-parter, "Shadow", Cmdr. Doggie has nightmares about alien attacks on his home planet Sirius, and will not be able to assume the mantle of Shadow Ranger until his overcomes his fears. Other 2-parters include "Messenger", replete with a dire warning from the future and an assault by the evil Morgana (Josephine Davison); and "Reflection", wherein the SPD's technology is stolen by a pair of two-bit crooks. The season's final episode, titled (what else?), "Ending", puts the B-squad's martial arts and survival skills to the ultimate test when the five SPD Rangers are captured by Gruumm. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi