Judith O'Dea Movies

A highly-secretive women's academy houses a dark secret in this blood-drenched horror yarn. A graduate student in women's studies, Mary has her entire political career planned out when she discovers she is pregnant. Shortly after wrapping up a summer working for an influential female senator, Mary and her friends are returning to campus when their car is stolen, leaving them stranded in the countryside. Miraculously, a group of students from the nearby Ross-Prentiss Women's Academy happen shortly thereafter, and offer the girls shelter. Upon arriving at Ross-Prentiss and striking up a fast friendship with Judith, the leader of the group, Mary discovers that institution is in fact a feminist sect that aims to take the world back from men by force, and the students are preparing for all out war. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

Shunned by his loved ones after realizing his true sexual identity, a shy young man slips into a paranoid and violent rage when the object of his affection offers nothing but rejection in director Jason Paul Collum's bleak tale of love gone bad. Elliot is a quiet soul with a pretty fiancé and a loving family, but when Elliot's growing lust for Corwin finds him isolated from his friends and family, the stage is set for disaster the likes of which this family has never seen. Rejected by the callous Corwin and excommunicated from his family and fiancé, Elliot makes a murderous resolve to win Corwin's heart and vows not let anyone stand in the way of true love. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

When unexpected radiation raises the dead, a microcosm of Average America has to battle flesh-eating zombies in George A. Romero's landmark cheapie horror film. Siblings Johnny (Russ Streiner) and Barbara (Judith O'Dea) whine and pout their way through a graveside visit in a small Pennsylvania town, but it all takes a turn for the worse when a zombie kills Johnny. Barbara flees to an isolated farmhouse where a group of people are already holed up. Bickering and panic ensue as the group tries to figure out how best to escape, while hoards of undead converge on the house; news reports reveal that fire wards them off, while a local sheriff-led posse discovers that if you "kill the brain, you kill the ghoul." After a night of immolation and parricide, one survivor is left in the house.... Romero's grainy black-and-white cinematography and casting of locals emphasize the terror lurking in ordinary life; as in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), Romero's victims are not attacked because they did anything wrong, and the randomness makes the attacks all the more horrifying. Nothing holds the key to salvation, either, whether it's family, love, or law. Topping off the existential dread is Romero's then-extreme use of gore, as zombies nibble on limbs and viscera. Initially distributed by a Manhattan theater chain owner, Night, made for about 100,000 dollars, was dismissed as exploitation, but after a 1969 re-release, it began to attract favorable attention for scarily tapping into Vietnam-era uncertainty and nihilistic anxiety. By 1979, it had grossed over 12 million, inspired a cycle of apocalyptic splatter films like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and set the standard for finding horror in the mundane. However cheesy the film may look, few horror movies reach a conclusion as desolately unsettling. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi