Joshua Miller Movies

A mysterious magician has some very unpleasant secrets in this gory tale of terror. Edmund Bigelow (Kip Pardue) is the publisher of Cacophony Gazette, a journal that covers the cutting edge of art and performance in California. Jaded Bigelow thinks he's seen it all until he and his girlfriend Maggie (Bijou Phillips) take in a show by Montag the Magician (Crispin Glover), who with the help of his sidekick the Geek (Jeffrey Combs) delivers a stomach-turning show in which he brings volunteers on stage and dismembers them, only to have his victims stagger off stage at the end of the show, shaken but still very much alive. Bigelow soon becomes obsessed with Montag's show and wants to know more about him and his illusions, but he suspects that there might be more to the magician's show than he imagined when maimed bodies start appearing all over L.A., and with the help of his pals Jinky (Joshua Miller) and Dr. Chong (Brad Dourif) they discover the bizarre secret behind Montag's hold over his audience. Based on a cult-favorite gore film from Hershel Gordon Lewis, The Wizard of Gore also features several members of the contemporary burlesque troupe the Suicide Girls as Montag's volunteers. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

A small-time loser who dreams of the big time discovers just how far wrong a good deed can take him in this black comedy. Frank Jacobs (Daniel Stern) is a guy with perennial bad luck living in a small town in Kansas, where he runs a gone-to-seed motel and is married to Helen (Patricia Richardson), a shrewish woman with a sharp tongue and little affection for her husband. Frank's great dream is to make a career for himself as a country and western singer, and while scrambling for a spot during an open mike night at a roadhouse, he makes the acquaintance of Julie (Lacey Kohl), a fellow singer who is married to past-prime C&W star Roy Baker (James Caan). After a quarrel, Roy leaves Julie by the side of the road, and Frank offers to give her a place to stay for the night. Helen is certain Julie's a home wrecker, and a serious argument erupts between Helen, Frank, and Julie; a gun goes off, and Helen is dead. Certain there's no easy way to explain Helen's death, Frank and Julie bury her in the backyard, and Frank soon finds himself having a fling with the attractive young singer. But before long, Roy arrives, eager to take Julie back whether she likes the idea or not, and matters are complicated when Helen's twin sister Wanda (also played by Richardson) arrives, determined to find out what's become of her sister. Viva Las Nowhere (also shown as Dead Simple) also stars Sherry Stringfield as another aspiring singer. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide

In this horror film, a number of scary and creepy stories are related as three young boys swap gruesome stories during a backyard camp out. ~ Iotis Erlewine, All Movie Guide

Canadian Mountie Louis Burke (Jean-Claude Van Damme) is assigned to a bizarre case where prison inmates are being murdered. Sent to the jail to investigate while undercover as a prisoner, Burke is hot on the trail until one of his former busts, the Sandman (Patrick Kilpatrick), is transferred to the same prison. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

In a futuristic society, a menial worker (John Glover) invites his boss (Richard Portnow) over for dinner to ingratiate himself with the business hierarchy. The two begin to fight however, and the tranquil meal turns ugly. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide

Adapted by Whitley Strieber from his book about his alleged contacts with aliens, Communion dramatizes a story all the more compelling for the author's insistence that it is true, complemented by Christopher Walken's enigmatic performance as Strieber. The film begins in October 1985, as Strieber is living in New York City with his wife Anne (Lindsay Crouse) and son Andrew (Joel Carlson). He is hunting for new book ideas without making much headway. He spends his days pacing around his apartment, thinking out loud or videotaping himself as he improvises bits of dialogue. It is soon decided that a vacation is in order, so, with their friends Alex (Andreas Katsulas) and Sara (Terri Hanauer), the Striebers head for their cabin in Upstate New York. In the middle of the night, an illumination descends on the cabin and surrounding forest, causing Strieber to wake up abruptly. In the semi-darkness of the cabin, he is able to make out a long face with narrow, tear-shaped eyes quietly observing him from a corner of the room. The next morning, he has forgotten -- or been made to forget -- the whole experience. He even shrugs off Alex's and Sarah's concern about "seeing lights" outside their bedroom window, claiming to have slept through the event. Back in New York, it becomes evident to Strieber and his family that something unusual did happen. He begins to have powerful hallucinations, and, after an inconclusive medical examination, he is encouraged by his wife to seek professional help from psychiatrist Janet Duffy (Frances Sternhagen). During hypnotic regression therapy, Strieber's lifelong contact with the "visitors" is brought to light, as well as the details of his more recent encounters. Still unable to accept these revelations, he returns to the cabin alone and finally communicates with the visitors, discovering that, although they are unable to reveal their true identity, their purpose may be to act as agents of personal transformation for himself and for others. An interesting and uneven film, Communion is bolstered considerably by Christopher Walken, whose role in the film, though appropriate for the subject matter, quickly transforms into a thesis on his own eccentricities as an actor. ~ Anthony Reed, All Movie Guide

The nude, strangled body of a teenaged girl lies on the edge of the river. Her murderer is her boyfriend, Daniel Roebuck. All the kids in Roebuck's dismal, dead-end town know who committed the murder. Trouble is, no one bothers to turn Roebuck in; some of the teens don't know how to react to the crime, while others, strung out on drugs and booze, just don't give a damn. A study of contemporary alienation, River's Edge was based on a real-life incident that occurred in Milpitas, California, in 1981. That same year, Neal Jimenez wrote his screenplay for River's Edge, but was not able to finance the project until 1987. Except for Dennis Hopper, cast as a holdover from the sixties who hobbles about on one leg and makes love to a blow-up doll, the cast was largely comprised of unknowns, many of whom (Crispin Glover, Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye) would definitely be heard from in the future. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The made-for-TV Fantastic World of D.C. Collins is curiously not a pilot film, despite the presence of the principal character's name in the title. D. C. Collins (played by Gary Coleman) is the son of a U.S. diplomat. His own life is deadly dull, so D.C. escapes into fantasy. At various junctures, he imagines himself to be space traveller Dwight Cloudclimber and archaeologist Alabama Smith (these character names are a tip-off to the film's level of wit). Collins gets a chance to act out his fantasies when he becomes embroiled in a real-life adventure involving stolen documents. The eclectic supporting cast includes Jason Bateman, Michael Ansara, and George Gobel! Fantastic World of D.C. Collins premiered February 10, 1984. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide