David Patrick O'Hara Movies
Richard Franklin directed this horror film that plays like Jane Goodall in Gaslight. Elisabeth Shue is Jane Chase, a graduate student in zoology who volunteers to help Dr. Steven Phillip (Terence Stamp), a professor at the university, with his animal studies. Arriving at his mansion, she is greeted by Link, a orangutan dressed in a monkey suit. Jane gets to know Link and Dr. Phillip's other chimp charges, Imp and Voodoo. One day Dr. Phillip goes to town, supposedly to sell Voodoo, but instead, Voodoo is found dead at the mansion. Link then proceeds to ignore Jane's commands and starts pushing Imp around. When Dr. Phillip's friend Bailey (Kevin Lloyd) arrives to take Voodoo away, Link becomes aggressive and chases Bailey away from the mansion. Jane later realizes Link is holding her prisoner in the mansion, not allowing her through the door and keeping the telephone away from her. Link is now out for blood, and the blood belongs to Jane. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Terence Stamp, Elisabeth Shue, (more)
Fred Olen Ray always manages to attract major names to his bargain-basement actioners, and Armed Response is no exception. The scene is Chinatown, where Yakuza boss Mako yearns to get his hands on a stolen jade statue. David Goss, son of retired cop Lee van Cleef and the brother of Vietnam veterans David Carradine and Brent Huff, is hired by Mako to deliver half a million dollars to the crooks who've got the statue. Things go awry, ending in a shootout. Mortally wounded, Goss brings the statue home, at which point a vengeful Carradine picks up the storyline. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- David Carradine, Lee Van Cleef, (more)
- 1984
- PG
Writer/director Bill Forsyth's follow-up to his best film, Local Hero, is another comic exploration of a man undergoing a personal crisis. In Local Hero, the American played by Peter Riegert finds himself enchanted by the people and ambience of a Scottish village he has been dispatched to purchase for an oil company. In Comfort and Joy, Alan (Bill Paterson) is a Glasgow radio disc jockey whose air name is the chirpy Dickey Bird. After Maddy, his girlfriend (Eleanor David), walks out on him at Christmas, he's spurred to re-evaluate his life. Looking for more meaningful work than spinning pop tunes and offering inane chatter to his geriatric listeners, Alan decides to make a radio documentary. He chances upon a local rivalry between two ice cream companies, who are sabotaging each other's trucks in an effort to monopolize the market. Attracted to Charlotte (C.P. Grogan), the daughter of one of the company owners, Alan finds himself playing peacemaker rather than documentarian. That this cold war takes place in the dead of a bitter Scottish winter is only one of Forsyth's many sly touches. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Bill Paterson, Eleanor David, (more)
