James Watkins Movies

The Ringan Ledwidge-directed, Andrew Upton and James Watkins-scripted psychological thriller Gone (a U.S.-British-Australian co-production) follows in the footsteps of such shockers as The Company of Strangers and Kalifornia, as several innocent, unwitting young travelers inadvertently find themselves at the mercy of a psychotic outsider who poses as a Good Samaritan. The story unfolds in the Australian outback, with Alex (Shaun Evans) en route to visit his girlfriend Sophie (Amelia Warner) in Byron. His intended plans take an unexpected left turn, however, when he misses his bus and accepts the offered assistance of another traveler, the seemingly benign American Taylor (Scott Mechlowicz). The men agree to spend the evening together and partake in a night of drunken excess with several women, but the next morning, Taylor takes a potentially incriminating Polaroid of Alex in bed with one of the girls. He nonetheless assures Alex that he has destroyed it, which assuages Alex's fears temporarily. When the men decide to remain together and travel across the outback with Sophie and her friend Ingrid, however, signs of duplicitous and shady behavior emerge from Taylor - including his overt sexual interest in Sophie, the threatening resurgence of the Polaroid, and Ingrid's sudden, inexplicable disappearance. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi

The Descent editor Jon Harris makes the leap to the director's chair in this sequel to Neil Marshall's claustrophobic 2005 creature flick. Sarah Carter (Shauna MacDonald) has managed to escape from the Appalachian cave system where all of her friends were killed by "crawlers" -- primordial humanoids who have adapted to living in the subterranean darkness. In hopes that some of the spelunkers may have survived, Sheriff Redmond Vaines rounds up his deputies for a rescue mission, and decides to take Sarah along as a guide. At first Sarah has no memory of the horrors that wait below, but the further the team pushes into the cave, the more vivid her flashbacks become until the reality of the situation sinks in. Now, the rescue crew is being hunted from the shadows by a whole new clan of crawlers that are even more vicious and terrifying than their predecessors. Sarah was lucky to make it out of the caves alive the first time -- will that luck carry over into her second descent, or is she doomed to die while dreaming of escaping into the sunlight? ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

A widowed lawyer travels to a secluded village on an important assignment, and encounters a vengeful ghost with mysterious motives. After losing his beloved wife in childbirth, young barrister Arthur Kipps (Daniel Radcliffe) was nearly consumed by grief. A haunted widower father, he raises his young son with the help of his devoted nanny. Arthur is on the verge of losing his job when an important client of the firm dies, and his boss offers him one last opportunity to prove his worth by settling the woman's affairs. Determined to succeed, Arthur travels to the remote village and receives a chilly welcome. Something horrible once happened here, and it seems that the locals are determined to ensure Arthur never finds out what it was. Now, the more time Arthur spends in his client's crumbling estate, the more aware he becomes of a presence that isn't quite human. In this house dwells a woman's ghost. In life she lost something precious, and now in death she'll do whatever it takes to get it back. Until she does, her spectral presence will serve as a harbinger of doom, always to be followed by the death of an innocent. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi